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®£ap. ©optjrigjkt l^o. 

Shelf 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Boston Monday Lectures. 

BY JOSEPH COOK. 



BIOLOGY. "With Preludes on Current Events. Three Colored Illustrations. 

12mo. Sixteenth thousand $1.50 

TRANSCENDENTALISM. With Preludes on Current Events. 12mo. Tenth 

thousand 1.50 

ORTHODOXY. With Preludes on Current Events. Seventh Thousand . . 1.50 

CONSCIENCE. With Preludes on Current Events. Fifth Thousand . . 1.50 

HEREDITY. With Preludes on Current Events 1.50 

MARRIAGE. With Preludes on Current Events 1.50 

LABOR. With Preludes on Current Events ........ 1.50 

SOCIALISM. With Preludes on Current Events 1.50 

OCCIDENT. With Preludes on Current Events. (A new volume) .... 1.50 

ORIENT. With Preludes on Current Events. (A new volume with Portrait) . . 1.50 



" I do not know of any work on Conscience in which the true theory of ethics is so 
clearly and forcibly presented, together with the logical inferences from it in support of the 
great truths of religion. The review of the whimsical and shallow speculations of Matthew 
Arnold is especially able and satisfactory." — Professor Francis Bowen, Harvard Univer- 
sity. 

"These Lectures are crowded so full of knowledge, of thought, of argument, illumined 
with such passages of eloquence and power, spiced so frequently with deep-cutting though 
good-natured irony, that I could make no abstract from them without utterly mutilating 
tnem." — Rev. Dr. Thomas Hill, ex-President of Harvard University, in Christian Register. 

"Joseph Cook is a phenomenon to be accounted for. No other American orator has 
done what he has done, or any thing like it; and, prior to the experiment, no voice would 
have been bold enough to predict its success." — Rev. Professor A. P. Peabody of Harvard 
University. 

" Mr. Cook is a specialist. His work, as it now stands, represents fairly the very latest 
and best researches." — George M. Beard, 31. D., of New York. 

"By far the most satisfactory of recent discussions in this field, both in method and 
execution." — Professor Borden P. Boicne of Boston University. 

" Mr. Cook is a great master of analysis. He shows singular justness of view in his 
manner of treating the most difficult and perplexing themes." — Princeton Review. 

"The Lectures are remarkably eloquent, vigorous, and powerful." — R. Payne Smith, 
Dean of Canterbury. 

"They are wonderful specimens of shrewd, clear, and vigorous thinking."— Rev. Dr. 
Angus, the College, Regent's Park. 

"These are very wonderful Lectures." — Rev. C. H. Spurgeon. 

"Traversing a very wide field, cutting right across the territories of rival specialists, the 
work on Biology contains not one important scientific misstatement, either of fact or 
theory." — Bibliotheca Sacra. 

"Vigorous and suggestive. Interesting from the glimpses they give of the present phases 
of speculation in what is emphatically the most thoughtful community in the united 
States." — London Spectator. 

"I admired the rhetorical power with which, before a large mixed audience, the speaker 
knew how to handle the difficult topic of biology, and to cause the teaching of German 
philosophers and theologians to be respected." — Professor Schoberlein, of Gbttingen Uni- 
versity. 

" His object is the foundation of a new and true metaphysics resting on a biological basis, 
that is the proof of the truth of philosophical theism, and of the fundamental ideas of 
Christianity. These intentions he carries out with a full, and occasionally with a too full, 
application of his eminent oratorical talent, and with great sagacity and thorough 
knowledge of the leading works in physiology for the last thirty years." — Professor Ulrici, 
University of Halle, Germany. 



HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., Publishers. 




¥•* 



Boston Monda y Lectures. 



ORIENT, 



WITH PRELUDES ON CURRENT EVENTS. 



By JOSEPH COOK. 



Let us begin as Orientals and end as Occidentals, for these are 
the two halves of wisdom. 

Amiel: Journal Intiine. 





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BOSTON AND NEW YORK! 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. 

(ftfce Bitier^itie $re#j, Camfcri&se. 

1886. 



t>^l 



Copyright, 1886, 
By JOSEPH COOK. 

All rights reserved. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge : 
Electrotyped and printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co. 



To 
THE MANY SCORES OF FRIENDS 

IN 

ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, GERMANY, INDIA, CHINA, 
JAPAN, AND AUSTRALIA, 

WHOSE KINDNESS TO ME AND MINE, ON A TOUR OF THE WORLD, 

HAS ENCIRCLED THE EARTH FOR US WITH 

A CHAIN OF MEMORIES, 

EVERY LINK IN WHICH IS GOLDEN, 

Wtf» Book 

IS RESPECTFULLY, GRATEFULLY, AND AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED, 

IN ASPIRATION FOR THE SUCCESS OF 

INTERNATIONAL REFORM, 

AND THE GROWTH OF THE SPIRIT OF A 

COSMOPOLITAN CITIZENSHIP. 



" If intellectual faculties are common to all men, reason is also ; if 
reason is common to all, then conscience, which commands us what to 
do and what not to do, is common also ; if this is so, there is a com- 
mon law also ; if this is so, we are all members of some political com- 
munity ; and if this is so, the whole world is in a manner one state." 
— Marcus Aurelius : Thoughts, iv. 4. 



" The sun-orb sings, in emulation, 
'Mid brother spheres, his ancient round : 
His path predestined through creation 
He ends with step of thunder sound. 
The angels from his vision splendid 
Draw power whose measure none can say ; 
The lofty works, uncomprehended, 
Are bright as on the earliest day. 

" And swift and swift beyond conceiving, 
The splendor of the world goes round ; 
Day's Eden-brightness still relieving 
The awful Night's intense profound : 
The ocean tides in foam are breaking, 
Against the rocks' deep bases hurled, 
And both, the spheric race partaking, 
Eternal, swift, are onward hurled." 

Goethe, Faust (Taylor's tr.), Prologue in Heaven. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The object of the Boston Monday Lectures is to present 
the results of the freshest German, English, and American 
scholarship on the more important and difficult topics con- 
cerning the relations of Religion and Science. 

They were begun in the Meionaon in 1875. The au- 
diences gathered at noon on Mondays were of such size 
as to need to be transferred to Park Street Church in Octo- 
ber, 1876, and thence to Tremont Temple, which was often 
more than full during the winter of 1876-77 and in that of 
1877-78. The very capacious auditorium of Tremont Tem- 
ple was destroyed by fire in August, 1879 ; and in Novem- 
ber of that year the lectures were transferred to the Old 
South Meeting-House, the most interesting of the historic 
edifices of New England. 

The audiences have always contained large numbers of 
ministers, teachers, and other educated men. 

The thirty-five lectures given in 1876-77 were reported 
in the Boston Daily "Advertiser," by Mr. J. E. Bacon, 
stenographer, and most of them were republished in full in 
New York and London. They are contained in the first, 
second, and third volumes of Boston Monday Lectures, 
entitled " Biology," " Transcendentalism," and " Ortho- 
doxy." 

The thirty lectures given in 1877-78 were reported by 
Mr. Bacon for the " Advertiser," and republished in full in 



Vlll INTRODUCTION. 

New York and London. They are contained in the fourth, 
fifth, and sixth volumes of Boston Monday Lectures, en- 
titled " Conscience," " Heredity," and " Marriage." 

The twenty lectures given in 1878-79 were reported by 
Mr. Bacon for the "Advertiser," and republished in full 
in New York and London. They are contained in the sev- 
enth and eighth volumes of Boston Monday Lectures, en- 
titled " Labor " and " Socialism." 

In 1880, 1881, and 1882, Mr. Cook made a tour of the 
world, as traveler and lecturer. 

During his absence there was given in Tremont Temple, 
in the Boston Monday Lectureship, a course of ten lectures, 
which are now included in the volume entitled " Christ and 
Modern Thought." The lecturers were : — 

President James McCosh, D. D., LL. D., of Princeton 
College. 

Ex-President Mark Hopkins, D. D., LL. D., of Wil- 
liams College. 

President E. G. Robinson, D. D., LL. D., of Brown 
University. 

Rev. S. W. Dike. 

Rev. Thomas Guard, D. D. 

Rt. Rev. Thomas M. Clark, D. D., LL. D. 

Prof. George R. Crooks, D. D., LL. D., of Drew 
Theological Seminary. 

Rev. G. B. Thomas, D. D. 

Rev. John Cotton Smith, D. D. 

Chancellor Howard Crosby, D. D., LL. D. 

In the volume made up of the lectures of these gentle- 
men, there was published a preliminary lecture on " The 
Methods of Meeting Modern Unbelief," given by Mr. Cook 
in London. In the English edition there was included 
Wendell Phillips' Reply to Chancellor Crosby's View of the 
Temperance Question. 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

After returning from his tour of the world, Mr. Cook 
gave in the Boston Monday Lectureship, in Tremont Tem- 
ple, the twelve lectures which are included in the ninth and 
tenth volumes of the Boston Monday Lectures, entitled 
" Occident " and " Orient." They were reported steno- 
graphically by Mr. Bacon, and republished in full in New 
York, Chicago, London, and other cities. 

The following is from the Report of the Boston Mon- 
day Lectureship for 1883: — 

1. The published reports of the Boston Monday Lectures 
are now estimated to reach in America, England, Scotland, 
India, and Australia more than a million readers weekly. 

2. The audiences in Boston for the season of 1883 — the 
seventh of the Lectureship — have been of unprecedented 
quantity and quality, often exceeding the seating capacity 
of Tremont Temple. 

3. The Monday Lectures given in past years now make 
eight volumes in their American form, and of these several 
have reached a fifteenth or sixteenth edition. There are in 
England thirteen different forms of these volumes as repub- 
lished in London. It is affirmed by their numerous publish- 
ers that no volumes on similar themes have ever been circu- 
lated more widely than these through England, Scotland, 
India, and Australia. 

4. During Mr. Cook's recent absence from Boston, he 
made a tour of the world, the journey extending through 
two years and seventy-seven days. He lectured oftener, on 
the average, than every other working-day, while on the 
land. In all the great cities visited there were immense 
audiences. The principal subjects of the lectures were the 
chief questions now in discussion between Christianity on 
the one hand, and philosophy and physical science on the 
other. It is believed that topics equally difficult and seri- 
ous were never before carried through a tour of similar ex- 
tent and success. 



X INTRODUCTION. 

There were 135 public appearances in the United King- 
dom, 42 in India and Ceylon, 5 in China, 12 in Japan, and 
50 in Australia. 

5. Among the distinguished gentlemen who have given 
written permission for the use of their names on the Honor- 
ary Committee of the Boston Monday Lectureship, are : — 

Rev. James McCosh, D. D., President of Princeton 
College ; Rev. R. S. Storks, D. D., Brooklyn, N. Y. ; Rev. 
Roswell D. Hitchcock, D. D., New York city ; Rev. 
William M. Taylor, D. D., New York city ; Prof. Ed- 
wards A. Park, D. D., Andover, Mass. ; Prof. J. P. Gul- 
liver, Andover, Mass. ; Bishop F. D. Huntington, Syra- 
cuse, N. Y. ; Rev. T. M. Post, D. D., St. Louis ; Prof. S. 
I. Curtiss, Chicago Theological Seminary ; President 
George F. Magoun, Iowa College ; Bishop Benjamin N. 
Paddock ; Hon. A. H. Rice, Ex-Governor of Massachu- 
setts ; Hon William Claflin, Ex-Governor of Massachu- 
setts ; Prof. Borden P. Bowne, Boston University ; Sam- 
uel Johnson, Boston ; Wendell Phillips, Boston ; 
Rev. N. G. Clark, D. D., Boston ; Rev. Otis Gibson, 
San Francisco; Gen. John Eaton, Department of the 
Interior, Washington, D. C 

A. J. Gordon, President 

M. R. Deming, Secretary and Treasurer. 

G. A. Foxcroft, Business Manager. 

As the matter in the Preludes refers to current reform, 
the expressions of the audiences, whether favorable or un- 
favorable, are retained as recorded by the stenographer ; 
but these have been omitted in the Lectures, as the latter 
have been considerably revised and enlarged since delivery. 

Among the more salient points of the present volume 
will be found — 

1. A study of the character and career of Keshub Chun- 
der Sen and of the contributions of the Brahmo Somaj of 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

India to the science of Comparative Theology. (See Lect. 
III. and Appendix III.) 

2. A discussion of the origin and possible future of re- 
cent reforms in Japan. (See Lect. V., Appendix IV., and 
especially Appendix V.) 

3. A series of descriptive passages concerning Palestine, 
the Taj Mahal, the Himalayas, China, and the Southern 
Pacific Ocean. (See Lecture I., Appendices I. and II., 
and Lectures IV. and VI.) 

4. A consideration of the achievements and probable 
future of civilization is Australasia. (See Lecture VI.) 

5. A discussion of the International Duties of Christen- 
dom and of the prospects of Imperial Federation in the 
British Empire. (See Prelude VI.) 



LIST OF CITIES 

VISITED IN MR. COOK'S TOUR OF THE WORLD. 



Instead of a map showing the course of Mr. Cook's 
tour of the world, a list of cities is here given in the order 
in which they were visited. The names of those in which 
lectures were delivered are starred. Those marked with 
three stars are those in which courses of lectures were 
given. The time occupied by the whole tour was two years 
and seventy-seven days. 

I. England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. 



Steamship " Arizona," 

York to Liverpool. 
Liverpool. 
London.* 
Birmingham.** 
Stratford-on-Avon. 
Cardiff.** 
Brecon.* 
Swansea.** 
Oxford. 
Sheffield* 
Bradford * 
Newcastle* 
Dewsbury.* 
Leeds* 
Edinburgh.*** 
Glasgow.*** 
Ayr. 



New 



Mauchline. 

Glasgow.** 

Stirling* 

Balloch. 

Glasgow* 

Kilmarnock.* 

Dundee.** 

St. Andrews. 

Perth* 

Glasgow.* 

Aberdeen.* 

Elgin* 

Inverness.* 

Blair Athol. 

Edinburgh. 

Sunderland.* 

Stockton.* 

Durham* 



XIV 



LIST OF CITIES VISITED. 



Middlesbrough* 


Dumfries.* 


Edinburgh. 


Craigenputtock. 


Newcas tie-on- Tyne.* 


Ecclefechan. 


Jarrow-on-Tyne.* 


Londonderry.** 


Darlington.* 


Dublin.** 


Batley * 


Newry * 


Keighley.* 


Belfast* 


York* 


Dublin* 


Hanley* 


Belfast.*** 


Birmingham.* 


Dublin* 


Walsall* 


Wolverhampton.* 


Manchester.* 


Bolton* 


Bolton* 


Manchester.* 


Manchester.** 


London* 


Liverpool* 


Aberdare.* 


Aberavon* 


Cardiff* 


Merthyr Tydfil * 


Swansea.* 


Edinburgh. 


Treorky.* 


Bolton.* 


London. 


Bradford* 


Huddersfleld.* 


Leicester.* 


Upper Holloway.* 


Walsall* 


London.*** 


Leicester. 


Eochdale.* 


Nottingham.* 


Hull* 


Huddersneld* 


London. 


Edinburgh.* 


Tunbridge Wells. 


South Shields* 


Cambridge. 


Halifax* 


Ely. 


Hawick.* 


Bedford. 


Melrose. 


Olney. 


Haddington. 


Canterbury. 


Edinburgh. 


Dover. 


II. Germany ah 


d Switzerland. 


Brussels. 


Berlin. 


Battle-field of Waterloo. 


Leipzig.* 


Antwerp. 


Halle. 


Cologne. 


Bonn. 


Bonn am Khein.* 


Bingen. 


Ems. 


Heidelberg. 


Gottingen. 


Baden 





LIST 


OF CITIES VISITED. 


Strasburg. 






Chamounix. 


Basel. 






Martigny. 


Berne. 






Lucerne. 


Interlaken. 






Fluelen. 


Geneva. 






Andermatt. 


Coppet. 






St. Gotthard Pass. 




III. 


Italy and Greece. 


Biasca. 






Borne.* 


Stresa. 






Pompeii. 


Milan. 






Naples* 


Padua. 






Mediterranean. 


Venice. 






Athens. 


Florence. 






Greece to Egypt. 




iv. : 


Egypt ai 


ro Palestine. 


Alexandria. 






Port Said. 


From Alexandria to Jaffa. 


Cairo. 


Jaffa. 






The Pyramids. 


Jerusalem. 






Suez. 


Bethlehem. 






The Bed Sea. 


Jaffa. 






Aden. 


Jaffa to Port Said. 








V. 


India a 


nd Ceylon. 


Bombay.*** 






Bay of Bengal. 


Poona.** 






Steamer to Madras 


Ahmednagar.* 






Madras.*** 


Jubbulpore. 






Bangalore.** 


Allahabad. 






Trichinopoly. 


Agra. 






Madura.*** 


Delhi. 






Tinnevelly. 


Cawnpore. 






Tuticorin. 


Lucknow.* 






India to Ceylon. 


Allahabad.* 






Colombo. 


Benares.* 






Kandy.*** 


Calcutta.*** 






Colombo.* 


Darjeeling. 






Galle* 


Calcutta. 









XV 



XVI 



LIST OF CITIES VISITED. 



VI. China and Japan. 



Galle to Hong Kong. 

Hong Kong. 

Canton.* 

Hong Kong. 

China Sea. 

Nagasaki.* 

Steamer, Inland Sea. 

Yokohama.* 

Tokio.*** 

Yokohama.* 

Steamer to Yokaichi. 

Yokaichi to Nagoya. 

Nagoya to Sekigahara.* 

Sekigahara to Kioto. 



Kioto. 
Nara. 
Kobe.** 
Osaka.* 
Kobe. 
Kioto.** 

Steamer, Inland Sea.* 
Nagasaki* 
Steamer, China Sea. 
Shanghai.*** 
Steamer to Foochow. 
Foochow.* 

Steamship " Menmuir," Foo- 
chow to Sydney. 



VII. Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and the Pacific 

Ocean. 



Sydney.*** 

Bathurst* 

Sydney.* 

Goulburn.* 

Melbourne.*** 

Ballarat.* 

Melbourne. 

Ballarat* 

Melbourne.** 

Geelong.* 

Melbourne. 

Steamer to Adelaide. 

Adelaide.*** 

Gawler* 

Moonta Mines* 

Adelaide.*** 

Steamer to Melbourne. 

Melbourne. 



Launceston, Hobart. 

Hobart.*** 

Launceston.* 

Melbourne.** 

Sandihurst.** 

Melbourne.* 

Sydney. 

Steamer to Brisbane. 

Brisbane.*** 

Ipswich* 

Brisbane.* 

Steamer to Sydney. 

Sydney. 

Steamship " Zealandia," from 

Sydney to San Francisco.* 
Auckland.* 
Honolulu.* 



San Francisco.** 
Oakland.* 
Denver.* 
Lincoln.* 



VIII. America. 

Omaha.* 
Chicago.* 
Albany. 
Boston.* 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE I. 










PALESTINE, EGYPT, AND THE FUTURE OF ISLAM. 


PAGE 


Man at his Climax 16 


The Sinlessness of Christ . 16 


God in History in Palestine .... 


. 


. 


. 


. 16 


A Progressive Revelation .... 








17 


Chief Scenes of the Holv Land . 








. 19 


Approach to Jerusalem during an Eclipse 








21 


Palestine a Bridge between Egypt and Assyria 


. 


. 


. 


. 23 


Possible Future of Svria .... 








23 


Modern Jews in Palestine .... 








. 24 


The Euphrates Valley Railway 








25 


The Jordan Canal 








. 26 


England in Egypt 








27 


Possible Restoration of the Caliphate . 








. 28 


The Future of Mohammedanism 








33 


Abraham's Oak 








. 36 


Bath in the Jordan and in the Dead Sea . 








38 


Nazareth 








. 40 


The Sea of Galilee 








44 


Damascus 








. 46 


Ruins of Baalbec . . . . 








48 



LECTURE II. 

ADVANCED THOUGHT IN INDIA. 

Aden .69 

Heat in the Red Sea 70 

The Indian Ocean 71 

Oriental Skies at Night 72 

b 



XV111 



CONTENTS. 



Landing at Bombay .... 

Peculiarities of the Hindu Temperament . 
Lectures in Bombay .... 

The English Language in India 
Lectures in Poona, Allahabad, and Benares 

Lectures in Calcutta 

Alexander Duff and Lord Macaulay 
The Himalayas from Darjeeling . 
What is India 1 ..... 

Chief Dates in Indian History 
Twelve Questions on India 



74 
76 
77 
78 
80 
80 
81 
81 
83 
84 



LECTUEE III. 

KESHUB CHUNDER SEN AND HINDU THEISM. 

Eclectic Theism and the Brahmo Somaj 105 

Earn Mohun Eoy 105 

Debendra Nath Tagore 106 

Keshub Chunder Sen's Ancestry 107 

His Youth and Education 108 

His Eeverence for the Inner Voice 110 

His Doctrine of Inspiration 110 

His Eelations to Unitarianism 112 

His Genius as an Orator 114 

His Devotional Training of his Pupils 115 

Ceremonies in his Church 120 

Criticisms of his Opponents 121 

Merits and Demerits of his System 122 

The Theosophists of India 124 

Esoteric Buddhism 126 

The New Dispensation 133 

Parsee Worship at Sunset 137 

Parsee Towers of Silence 139 

On Shipboard near Singapore . . . . . . .141 



LECTUEE IV. 
woman's work for WOMAN IN ASIA. 



Twenty-One Million of Widows in India 
Their Desolate Lives . 



163 

164 



CONTENTS. XIX 

Abolition of Suttee 165 

Child-Marriages 166 

Need of Medical Missionaries . . . . . . .168 

Zenana Teaching . . . . , . . . 169 

Summary of Evils and Remedies . . . . . .169 

Lectures in Ceylon 171 

The Bitter Cry of Asia 171 

Glimpses of the Cantonese 174 

LECTURE V. 

JAPAN, THE SELF-REFORMED HERMIT NATION. 

Physical and Spiritual May in Japan 205 

A Nation born in a Day . 205 

Nagasaki 206 

Faces of Aged Men and Women in Japan .... 206 

The Japanese Landscape 209 

First View of Fuji-Yama 209 

Yokahama 210 

Japanese Art 212 

Japanese Appreciation of Natural Scenery . . . .212 

Twelve Lectures in Japan 213 

Central Traits of the Japanese Character 213 

Causes of the Reform of Japan 215 

Extent of the Reform . . .218 

Decadence of Reformed Buddhism 221 

Meaning of Nirvana 222 

Mr. Neesima 224 

Female Seminaries in Japan 226 

Perils of the Japanese Future 227 

LECTURE VI. 

AUSTRALIA, THE PACIFIC OCEAN, AND INTERNATIONAL REFORM. 

The Yang Tse Kiang River 244 

Lectures at Shanghai 244 

Foochow and the Min River 245 

Last View of Asia 245 

The Zone of Calms 245 

Crossing the Equator 246 



XX CONTENTS. 

Southern Constellations 247 

The East Indian Archipelago 248 

First View of Australia 248 

An Anglo-American Alliance 249 

Chief Dates of Australian History 250 

Promises of the Australian Future 251 

Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide 253 

Botany Bay 254 

Proposed Australian Confederation 255 

Perils of the Australian Future 255 

Climatic Influences in Australia 256 

British Imperial Federation 257 

New Zealand 258 

The Sandwich Islands 258 

Aloha 258 

Aspirations of Humanity as a Whole 259 

American Influence Abroad 260 

Landing at the Golden Gate 261 



PRELUDE I. 

NATIONAL AID TO EDUCATION. 

Illiteracy in the United States . 3 

High Schools and Normal Schools 11 

Peril of Bondage to the Uneducated 11 

Three Plans for National Aid to Schools 12 

Senator Blair's Bill 13 



PRELUDE II. 

REVIVALS TRUE AND FALSE. 

Lessing's Test of the Worth of Creeds 53 

American Methods in Revivals 54 

Imitation of these Methods Abroad 54 

Leading Traits of the Church for the Times .... 56 

The Hidden Half of Christian Unity 60 

Conversation on Personal Religion . . . . . . 61 

Preaching to the Will 66 

Keshub Chunder Sen on Self- Surrender to God . . . 67 



CONTENTS. XXI 

PRELUDE III. 

LIMITED MUNICIPAL SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN 

One Fifth of our Population in Cities 95 

Woman's Vote and the Whiskey Rings 96 

Success of Woman's Suffrage in Wyoming .... 98 

Objections to the Ballot for Women 100 

Growing Perils of Municipal Misrule . . . . . .103 

PRELUDE IV. 

RELIGION IN COLLEGES AT HOME AND ABROAD. 



Increase of Numbers of College Students . 

Moral Poltroonery in College . 

Franklin's Plan for Moral Perfection . 

Anticipation of Marriage 

Presidents Hopkins, Woolsey, and McCosh 

Tennyson's " Palace of Art " . 

Harvard University in its Religious Aspects 

Balance of Culture 

Scipio Af ricanus 



147 
148 
152 
153 
154 
157 
157 
159 
160 



PRELUDE V. 

FOREIGN CRITICISM OF AMERICA. 

Two Britains and Two Americas 183 

Ignorant Critics of the United States 184 

Merits and Demerits of American Journalism . . . .186 

Australian Daily Journals 187 

Comparison of British and American Newspapers . . . 188 

American Manners 192 

Climatic Influences in England and America . . . 198 

PRELUDE VI. 

INTERNATIONAL DUTIES OF CHRISTENDOM. 

Christianity as an International Power 231 

Moral Confederation of Christendom 235 



XX11 CONTENTS. 

Arbitration as a Remedy for War 236 

Abolition of the Slave-Trade by Sea and Land . . . 238 

Rights of Neutrals in Modern Wars 238 

David Dudley Field's Proposed International Code , =. 241 



APPENDIX. 



I. The Taj Mahal 265 

II. In the Himalayas 276 

III. Death of Keshub Chunder Sen 283 

IV. Twenty-four Questions on New Japan .... 289 
V. The Future of Japanese Civilization ; a Speech at Kioto . 311 



L 



PALESTINE, EGYPT, AND THE FUTURE 
OF ISLAM. 

WITH A PRELUDE ON 

NATIONAL AID TO EDUCATION. 

THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SEVENTH LECTURE IN THE 

BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN 

TREMONT TEMPLE, FEBRUARY 19, 1883. 



" The laws of the United States present innumerable precedents in 
which Congress has exercised the power to contribute toward the gen- 
eral education of citizens of the new states, and in no instance has 
its constitutional right to do so been questioned." — Chief Justice 
Waite. 

"In the year 1900, each of the States lying between Maryland and 
Texas will have a colored majority within its borders ; and we shall 
have eight minor republics of the Union in which either the colored 
race will rule, or a majority will be disfranchised." — A. W. Tourgee. 



The scenery of Palestine is a fifth Gospel." — Ernest Renan. 

" There sits drear Egypt, mid beleaguering sands, 
Half woman and half beast, 
The burnt-out torch within her mouldering hands 
That once lit all the East." 

J. R. Lowell. 



ORIENT 



PRELUDE I. 

NATIONAL AID TO EDUCATION. 

Aeistotle said that whoever meditates on the art 
of governing men will perceive that it depends on the 
education of children. 

The most significant storm map of the United 
States is the chart illustrating the illiteracy of our 
population. I open it before you in the plates 29, 30, 
and 31 of Walker's " Statistical Atlas of the United 
States,'' and beg you to hover above it long with im- 
partial and searching gaze. Notice how thick and 
dark the clouds of illiteracy are becoming in the 
Southwest, and on the Gulf, and in Texas, and in the 
lower part of the Mississippi Valley. See how the 
gray mists gather on the great rivers of the beauti- 
ful lands of Georgia, Alabama, and the Carolinas, 
and on the mountain regions of Tennessee and Ken- 
tucky, and especially above the foreign population 
and largest cities of the Northern States. Neither the 
census of 1870 nor that of 1880 is faultless in accu- 
racy ; but in their chief outlines their results are to 
be trusted, when they agree, as they do on the points 



OEIENT. 



I am now emphasizing. In the chart which I hold 
before you the light yellow represents the school at- 
tendance. The other colors represent the population 
engaged in gainful occupations and in personal ser- 
vice. Speaking roundly, everybody except infants 
and the aged ought to be at school or at work ; and 
the margins of these squares show you the proportion 
of our population that is neither at school nor at 
work. Such of you as have an eye for scientific illus- 
trations will notice that by the often broad margins 
here a really immense population is indicated, and it 
is out of these marshes that the clouds rise which 
cover the map of illiteracy. These most suggestive 
charts I often keep lying open before me in my 
study, and I sometimes bend over them in solitude, 
with keen, patriotic pain and suffused eyes. They 
represent the darkest hour in the educational his- 
tory of the foremost Christian republic of all time. 

Notice, first, the illiteracy of the United States as 
a whole : — 

1. Five millions of the fifty millions of the popula- 
tion of the United States over ten years of age can- 
not read ; six and a quarter cannot write. 

2. Of the ten millions of voters of the United 
States, one in five cannot write his name. 

It is true, indeed, that one in five of our population 
is an evangelical church member. That fact repre- 
sents a most hopeful side of our civilization. But at 
the extreme left we have among the voters one in 
five who cannot write, and this is the most alarming 
part of our national condition. 

3. The nation is now charged with the education of 



NATIONAL AID TO EDUCATION. 5 

eighteen millions of children and youth. Of these 
ten and one half millions are enrolled in public and 
private schools, but the average attendance is only- 
six millions. Seven and one-half millions, or five 
twelfths of the whole, are growing up in absolute 
ignorance of the English alphabet. 

4. At the present rate of the increase of the num- 
ber of children not attending school, there will be in 
ten years more children in the United States out of 
schools than in them. (Senator Blair's Speech on 
Aid to Common Schools. " Congressional Record," 
June 15, 1882, p. 9.) 

Statements parallel to these have been made by 
our distinguished National Commissioner of Educa- 
tion, General John Eaton, of Washington, whose au- 
thority I have here, in print or writing, for all these 
propositions. Within a fortnight he has sent to me, 
most kindly, elaborate collections of documents, some 
of which lie on this table ; and he will send, I have 
no doubt, to any teacher or lecturer making a special 
study of national aid to education, similar collections. 
You can verify these statistics for yourselves. Sena- 
tor Blair, of New Hampshire, in introducing his fa- 
mous bill for the prevention of national illiteracy, put 
all these facts and many more before Congress. I 
am selecting out of the great quiver of startling cir- 
cumstances, illustrating the extent of national illiter- 
acy, a few arrows that have the sharpest points, and 
that are so feathered that the flight of them may be 
far and sure. 

5. In all but five of the states there were enough 
illiterate voters to have reversed the result of the last 
presidential election in each of these states. 



6 ORIENT. 

6. It is estimated by the statisticians of the gov- 
ernment that the total annual profit to the country 
by the conversion of illiterate into educated labor 
could not be less than $400,000,000 a year. (Gen- 
eral John Eaton, National Commissioner of Educa- 
tion, Address before the Union League Club of New 
York, December 21, 1882, pp. 19, 20.) 

Notice, next, the illiteracy of cities in the United 
States : — 

1. In thirty-four cities, according to their own 
latest official reports, from 50 to 82 per cent, of the 
children of school age are not enrolled at all. 

2. In eighty-six cities the average attendance is 
only about two thirds of the enrollment, or one third 
of the population of school age. These eighty-six 
cities contain over eight millions of inhabitants, or 
nearly one sixth of the total population of the coun- 
try; but more than a third of their population of 
school age never enter the school-room at all. 

You thought we had compulsory education. So 
we have, on paper, in many cities ; but in very many 
no compulsory education, even on paper. 

3. New York, superbest city of my native state 
and of the hemisphere, and ultimately to be as large 
as London, has 114,000 children not enrolled in school 
at all ; and the average attendance is but 132,000, 
out of a school population of 385,000. You say that 
many who are not in the public schools are in private 
schools, and I make allowance for that fact; but it 
does not account for the enormous difference between 
132,000 and 385,000. Suppose that it accounts for a 
quarter of that difference ; what are you to do with 



NATIONAL AID TO EDUCATION. 7 

the remaining three quarters, or nearly 200,000 chil- 
dren, growing up at the mouth of the Hudson with- 
out a knowledge of reading and writing ? 

4. Chicago, proud queen of the great lakes, en- 
rolls less than half (forty-three per cent.) of her 
children in the public schools ; less than a third are 
habitually in school ; fifty-seven per cent, never at- 
tend at all, and of these very few receive instruction 
in private schools. 

5. St. Louis has a school population of 106,000. 
Of these 55,000 are enrolled, 36,000 is the average 
attendance, and 50,000 are growing up in a savage 
state, aggravated by contact with the depravity of 
the worse parts of city life. 

6. Cincinnati has an average attendance at school 
of but 27,000, or less than a third of the whole num- 
ber of her school population ; while 51,000 are not 
enrolled at all. Out of the school population of the 
entire state only 28,650 are in private schools, and of 
these probably not more than 10,000 can be found 
in Cincinnati, so that 40,000 children in that city 
are to-day growing up in dense ignorance. (Senator 
Blair's Speech, cited above, p. 9. See also the Tables 
on Illiteracy, prepared by General Eaton.) 

Cincinnati is not the worst of our great cities, and 
Ohio is the mother of Presidents, and in most re- 
spects a model commonwealth. Three of these cities 
have sprung up in the Northwest, — that region of 
our country which has had enormous aid from gov- 
ernment for common-school purposes. 

Notice, thirdly, the illiteracy in the Southern States. 
I place this topic after the theme of illiteracy in 



8 ORIENT. 

northern cities, lest I should seem to be moved by 
partisan feeling, or should be accused of not remem- 
bering with sufficient vividness the mighty financial 
reverses of the South at the close of the Rebellion. 
I beg leave to state that I quite agree with Mr. Mayo 
in his admirable address before the gathering of the 
friends of social science at Saratoga, last summer, 
when he says, after traveling three years through 
the South, that he believes the population of that sec- 
tion of our Union has done more in proportion to its 
wealth for common-school education in the last ten 
years than the northern portion of our Union. Never- 
theless, here are two facts of huge significance : — 

1. Thirty-two and three tenths per cent, of the 
voters in the South are illiterate. Of these 69.7 are 
colored and 30.3 are whites. 

2. In spite of all the appliances of education, the 
increase of illiterate voters in the South from 1870 to 
1880 was 187,671. "In more than one third of the 
Union the ignorant voters are almost one third of the 
total number of voters." (President Hayes's Address 
at Cleveland, October, 1882.) 

Notice, lastly, illiteracy in the territories : — 

1. In New Mexico forty-five per cent, of the white 
population over ten years of age, and sixty-nine per 
cent, of the colored population, cannot write. 

2. In Alaska, to our most searching shame, — a 
territory wholly under the control of Congress, and as 
large as the whole American Union east of the Mis- 
sissippi and north of the Gulf States, — Congress 
leaves a population of 30,000 hardy people without 
any legal provision at all for the education of their 
children. 



NATIONAL AID TO EDUCATION. 9 

Storm East, storm West, storm North, storm South, 
storm especially in the Southwest ! 

While illiteracy, either as a haze or a dark threat, 
occupies so much of our national sky, what is to 
happen if the opinions of his excellency, the present 
Governor of Massachusetts, prevail concerning the 
withdrawal of state aid from normal schools, or the 
reduction of the salaries of male teachers in the com- 
mon schools ? Summarize the points in his recent 
message which are unfriendly to the present Massa- 
chusetts school system, and call his excellency's edu- 
cational policy Butler ism. Let the system of gov- 
ernmental action he recommends be adopted, let But- 
lerism prevail, and are the storms which national 
illiteracy is sure to engender likely to be averted ? 
Is Butlerism the Ariel to control the Caliban of the 
ignorant suffrage of the United States ? That is a 
fair question. A very bold one, indeed ; but it is the 
business of the independent platform to be bold. I 
am not a politician. I am not trying to grind any 
axe on any one of the forty political grindstones of 
this Republic, nor have I any political head to be 
decapitated. [Laughter.] My conviction is that 
national illiteracy and Butlerism stand to each other 
in the relations of fire and fan. Butlerism and na- 
tional illiteracy put together would ruin the nation. 
[Applause.] 

On former occasions I have defended the normal 
schools of this state, and, indeed, they are sufficiently 
defended by Colonel Higginson's recent beautiful 
apologue of the farmer and his plow. (See " Jour- 
nal of Education," 1883.) We exempt the plow 



10 ORIENT. 

from legal seizure when a man cannot pay his debts. 
Why? Because this instrument is one of the chief 
means by which its owner is supposed to obtain his 
livelihood. What the plow is to the man who de^ 
pends on the soil for his sustenance, the normal 
schools, educating teachers for the common schools, 
are to the whole common-school system. The un- 
kind remarks of his excellency concerning the state 
normal schools are contrary to what the Peabody 
Fund and its administrators have taught us, for a 
great portion of that fund goes for the education of 
teachers. His excellency's remarks almost amount 
to saying : " Cut down the tree. It is of no use to 
us. All we want is its shade." [Laughter.] 

Give us the normal schools to educate a competent 
class of teachers, and give us high schools, with prac- 
tical courses of study, as a link of silver between the 
common schools, or the link of iron, and the univer- 
sities, or the link of gold, and we can hold our popula- 
tion together through all its orders, from its less well 
educated to the best educated classes. One of the 
hugest needs of this country and of many another 
country is a middle link of education between the 
best cultured and those who have only elementary 
instruction. The masses of our people very soon will 
cease to believe in highly intellectual and thoroughly 
trained men as leaders, unless there be high schools 
to lift pupils from the very bottom of the social scale 
and educate the brightest minds into sympathy with 
the best educated circles. Our government rests on 
the people at large ; but in any severe strain it de- 
pends on the silver link more than on the golden or 



NATIONAL AID TO EDUCATION. 11 

the iron. A man who is too highly educated in this 
country loses a certain amount of political influence. 
A man who is very ignorant must, of course, lose in- 
fluence ; but if we have not high schools, if we have 
not advanced grammar schools, to carry the best in- 
tellects of the people up into the region where they 
at least appreciate the highest thought, although 
they may not be able to produce it, we are likely to 
be led from the bottom, and not from the top of so- 
ciety. Unless we have normal schools, and high 
schools as a middle link, we cannot be led even by 
the middle portion of our population, but shall be led 
by the lowest. In the name of political necessity 
and of the interest of all classes of the people, I de- 
fend the high schools and the normal schools. I de- 
fend that continuity of educational institutions which 
begins at the lowest round of the common-school lad- 
der, — a round that ought to stand in the gutter and 
lift the worthy pupil, of whatever social rank, to the 
upper round, on a level as high as education has 
reached anywhere on earth. Let us make the Amer- 
ican educational ladder continuous, with no gaps, so 
that the poorest man, if he have the ability, may go 
up to the very top. Without vigorous intermediate, as 
well as primary and collegiate education, any nation 
under universal suffrage is likely to fall into bondage 
to the uneducated. 

National aid to education is the only adequate rem- 
edy for the national evil of illiteracy. If the attitude 
of Congress is to be taken as representing that of the 
people at large, public opinion is yet very far from 
having risen to the height the facts require us to 



12 ORIENT. 

reach, if we are to meet the demands of this case. 
Many a country is much more sensitive to its illiter- 
acy than we appear to be to that of our own nation. 
At this moment Greece expends more for her common 
schools, in proportion to her wealth, than we do. So 
does Japan ; and the latter country has a larger pro- 
portion of her children in school than we have. As 
a nation, we are not in advance of Prussia in expen- 
ditures for common schools. Even England and Scot- 
land are verging close upon New England in their 
taxes for the abolition of illiteracy. The truth is 
that, instead of being, as a whole, at the front of the 
educational advance of civilization, our proud nation 
is gradually dropping into a laggard place. Of course, 
in some particulars we have difficulties to contend 
with which foreign nations do not have in equal de- 
gree ; but so do they have difficulties which we have 
not. We have a great foreign immigration. We 
have lately made citizens of the vast colored popula- 
tion in the Southern States. No matter from what 
source illiteracy has arisen among us, it is our duty 
to cancel it, in spite of all difficulties, and to lead the 
world in the abolition of ignorance, for our form of 
government more than any other necessitates the edu- 
cation of the people at large. 

There are three plans put forward as antidotes for 
the giant mischiefs of illiteracy in the United States : 

1. An appropriation of 1100,000,000 during the 
next ten years, beginning with $15,000,000 annually, 
with a gradual decrease ; the money to be distributed 
on the basis of the illiteracy of citizens over ten years 
of age in the different states and territories, accord- 



NATIONAL AID TO EDUCATION. 13 

ing to the census of 1880, exclusively for common 
schools, unsectarian in character, one tenth of the 
sum to be used for the training of common-school 
teachers. This is the proposal made in the Senate 
bill reported by Mr. Blair, of New Hampshire. 

2. An appropriation of $10,000,000 annually for 
five years, on the same basis, for a similar purpose, 
no state to receive a larger sum than its own appro- 
priation, and on condition of having provided three 
months' schooling a year for all its children, five per 
cent, to be appropriated to the training of teachers. 
This is the proposal made in the House bill reported 
by Mr. Sherwin, of Illinois. (The Rev. A. D. Mayo's 
Address before the Social Science Association, at 
Saratoga, September 5, 1882.) 

3. The creation of a perpetual fund, to be com- 
posed of the accretions to the Treasury from annual 
sales of public lands, railroad revenues, and other 
sources, the interest of which shall be distributed to 
the states at first upon the basis of illiteracy, and 
afterward according to population ; one third to be 
appropriated to the support of agricultural colleges, 
and the remainder of such interest to the common 
schools. This proposal has been pending in Con- 
gress for several years. (See Senator Blair's Speech, 
cited above, p. 12.) 

This last is a majestic scheme. Next to Civil Ser- 
vice Reform, it ought to rouse most thoroughly the 
enthusiasm of our cultured circles and younger men, 
and so force upon Congress prompt action in obedi- 
ence to the will of the educated part of society. 
Questions of detail as to the management of the 



14 OKIENT. 

funds given by the nation in aid of education in the 
states can only be settled by experience. Distinguish 
carefully national contribution from national control 
in this matter. The expenditure of the national 
funds would, of course, be watched by national offi- 
cers ; but state rights would not be invaded at all. 
If there be doubt as to the constitutionality of the 
first and second of the proposals just mentioned, 
there can be none as to that of the third. As 
to precedents, it is most certain that we have al- 
ready given large parts of the public land in the 
Western and Northwestern States for the support of 
common school education. President Hayes has said 
that Ohio owes her present preeminence in the 
United States as an educated commonwealth far more 
to the national aid which the government gave to 
her common schools, by setting apart land in the 
Northwest Territory for their support, than to any 
other cause whatever. Her fat soil, her mighty com- 
mercial opportunities, her vigorous population have 
not done for her what this governmental aid did. 
We of the old thirteen States have not had as much 
aid as we have given ; but under these new measures 
we should obtain some aid, and we need it, especially 
where the great cities are thrusting their illiteracy 
into such alarming prominence. It is only fair that 
in any new aid the oldest States should have as- 
sistance according to the extent of their illiteracy. 
Such a use of public funds is certainly not opposed to 
precedent. Daniel Webster said it was not contrary 
to his interpretation of the Constitution to give a 
large part of the proceeds of the sale of public land 



NATIONAL AID TO EDUCATION. 15 

to the quenching of illiteracy and the support of the 
common-school education throughout the nation at 
large. 

My supreme argument in favor of this superb 
scheme of national aid to education is the condition 
of the South. It was the North that forced upon the 
South a large illiterate vote. This was a noble act, 
justified by the circumstances of the time. But the 
war itself is not fought out until we enable the South- 
ern States to conquer the perils of the illiteracy 
which came into existence there by the downfall of 
slavery and by the enfranchisement of the blacks. 
Let us deliver America from bondage to the unedu- 
cated ; let us end the war ; let us have peace. [Ap- 
plause.] 



LECTURE I. 

PALESTINE, EGYPT, AND THE FUTUEE OF ISLAM. 

Once, and once only, and in Palestine, has ap- 
peared on earth a perfect life. In the Holy Land, 
and there only, and there but once, has been seen 
man at his climax. The sinlessness of Christ forbids 
his possible classification with men. Events are 
everything and places nothing in the Holy Land, ex- 
cept as the latter illustrate the former. The scenery 
of Palestine is well said to be a fifth Gospel ; the 
uncovering of buried ruins in the Holy Land is a 
sixth ; the indubitable, current fulfillment of proph- 
ecy as to Jerusalem, the Jews, and Christianity, is 
a seventh ; but these gospels are empty and worth- 
less without the first four. 

What is to be seen in Palestine ? To the south, 
God in History ; to the east, God in History ; to the 
north, God in History ; to the west, God in History. 
What is to be heard in Palestine ? On Lebanon 
at noon, on Calvary at midnight, on the Mount of 
Olives at sunrise, in the Garden of Gethsemane at 
sunset, God, God, God, who was, and is, and is to 
come ! He at whose words the hills melt and the 
mountains smoke has spoken through Palestine as 
through no other trumpet of earth and time. It is 
the voice and not the instrument that is holy. 

Now that the mythical theory in explanation of 



PALESTINE, EGYPT, AND THE FUTUEE OF ISLAM. 17 

the origin of Christianity is completely overthrown, 
the enlightened traveler in the Holy Land will take 
as companions there not Strauss and Renan, but Ne- 
ander and Ewald and Keim and Stanley and Farrar 
and Weiss and Edersheim. 

The most important question ever raised by re- 
ligious or philosophical inquiry — How can the soul 
be delivered from the love of sin and the guilt of it ? 
— has received in Palestine, and not in Greece, not 
in Rome, not in India, nor elsewhere, a satisfactory 
answer. 

A progressive revelation extending through many 
ages, and contained in both the events and the incul- 
cations recorded in the Holy Scriptures, is unified by 
the single purpose of teaching the necessity and the 
methods of deliverance from the love and the guilt 
of sin. 

It is no more certain that it was given to Greece 
to teach art, philosophy, and eloquence, and to Rome 
to teach politics and jurisprudence, than that it was 
given to Palestine to instruct men in the way, the 
truth, and the life of reconciliation with God. 

Wholly peculiar was this mission, and as certainly 
supernatural as it was natural, and hardly less as- 
tounding in the latter aspect than in the former. 
The natural is always based on the supernatural. 
Only a natural supernaturalism explains either na- 
ture or history. 

It is historically incontrovertible that in Palestine 
appeared He whose precept, example, and pierced 
Right Hand have lifted heathenism off its hinges, and 
turned into new channels the course of the dolorous 



18 ORIENT. 

and accursed ages. All the details of his earthly 
life illuminate his message. Christ was a Revela- 
tion ; and these are indubitably 

" those holy fields, 
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet, 
Which ' eighteen ' hundred years ago were nailed 
For our advantage on the bitter cross." 

1 King Henry IV. I. 1. 

God in a progressive Apocalypse, the esoteric 
Egyptian religion, the Decalogue, the Psalms, the 
Prophets, the Sermon on the Mount, the Crucifixion, 
the Resurrection, the progress of Christianity through- 
out the ages, — these are the stupendous themes 
which assail the awakened soul in the Holy Land, 
and fill the air as with the presence of archangels. 
In their company one prefers frequent withdrawal 
from average human companionship. As to the ho- 
liest of the soul's experiences in such solitude, speech 
is silvern ; silence is golden. 

The wise student in travel will not allow the heav- 
enly visions to be obscured by the common dust of 
the Holy Land; the great historic events, and the 
transfigured places, by the trivialities, the squalor, the 
offensive moral details of Arab and Turkish life. A 
strong grasp on great essentials, a rigorous inatten- 
tion to unessentials, make the day electric among the 
holy hills : the reverse of these conditions may cause 
much of a traveler's time there to become disen- 
chanting and commonplace. It is important to be 
much alone in Palestine. 

1. What are the experiences which live longest in 
the crowded gallery of memories which a traveler 
brings back from the Holy Land ? 



PALESTINE, EGYPT, AND THE FUTURE OF ISLAM. 19 

The approach to Jerusalem for the first time ; the 
cloud of historic presences ; the holy hush of the 
soul ; the earliest glimpse of the gray wall through 
the olive orchards ; the unutterable thoughts of the 
events which have ruled the world from Olivet and 
Calvary ; the trance of religious emotion ; the en- 
trance through the Jaffa Gate near that tower of 
Hippicus, which Christ saw and Titus spared ; the 
ringing of the horse's hoofs on the pavement of Jeru- 
salem. 

The first visit . to Gethsemane with its ancient 
olives and its immeasurably moving associations. 

The earliest gaze from the height of the Mount of 
Olives westward upon Jerusalem as a whole, and 
eastward into that strange depression in which the 
Dead Sea lies. 

The Holy Sepulchre, with its ever-burning lights 
shining on crowds of pilgrims from all Christendom, 
— > Greek, Russian, Armenian, Syrian, Catholic, and 
Protestant, all gathered beneath one dome. 

The first view of what was probably Calvary, — the 
skull-shaped height north of Jerusalem, visible from 
the walls and from Olivet and Scopus, and fully meet- 
ing, as no other place does, the requirements of the 
Scriptural picture of the Crucifixion and of the mul- 
titudes who came together at that sight, when the 
heavens were darkened and the rocks rent. 

All the history of the Roman siege of Jerusalem, 
written, as it were, on the sky and on the hills. 

The Jews' wailing place, in a city that has seen 
twenty-seven sieges ; the poor, clean costumes of the 
Jewish women ; the fine-fibred complexions ; the end- 



20 OKIENT. 

lessly pathetic undulating cry, continued hour by hour, 
in presence of the few remaining great stones of the 
temple : " The heathen, O Lord, are come into thine 
inheritance ; " and the answering echo of fulfilled 
prophecy : " They shall lay thee even with the 
ground, and thy children within thee." 

A bath in the Jordan and one in the Dead Sea, in 
which it is nearly impossible to sink. 

A morning in the fields in which Ruth gleaned 
with Boaz. 

A morning, a noon, a sunset, a night in the Church 
of the Nativity at Bethlehem. 

A noon beneath Abraham's oak and at the cave 
of Macpelah. 

A morning at Jacob's well in presence of Ebal and 
Gerizim. 

The unchanged stupendous outlook from the hill 
behind Nazareth, vast snowy Hermon in the north- 
east, the Jordan Valley and the Esdraelon plain to 
the south, Carmel and the Mediterranean to the west, 
— the very horizon that Christ saw. 

A Sabbath on a convent roof at the edge of the 
sea of Tiberias, and among the flaming oleanders of 
the plain of Gennesaret. 

A morning among the nets that fishermen spread 
on the ruins of Tyre, and another at Sidon. 

Damascus and its sea of gardens and its street 
called Straight. 

Baalbec with its colossal hewn stones, the largest 
ever built into any structure erected by man. 

Lebanon uttering its farewells to the setting and 
its greetings to the rising sun, and in company with 
moon and stars. 



PALESTINE, EGYPT, AND THE FUTURE OF ISLAM. 21 

2. Is Palestine ever to rise from the desolation 
into which she has been trodden down by six hun- 
dred years of the tyranny of the Mohammedan races ? 
The hoof of the Turkish power is said to cause every 
green thing it touches to wither. When the tread of 
this hoof ceases to be felt in Palestine, will her vine- 
yards bend once more with heavy clusters, will her 
valleys grow green again, will her deserts blossom as 
the rose ? 

Crossing the peaceful, undulating wheat-fields of 
the plain of Sharon on a beautiful afternoon, it was 
my fortune on a second visit to the Holy Land to 
commence the ascent of the highlands of the interior 
of Palestine just at sunset. Up rose the shield of the 
orb of night, broad, clear, shimmering in its golden 
vividness, with a beauty not often seen outside of 
Oriental climes. Its shape was strange, however, and 
a sickly pallor began to overspread its disk. I knew 
not what was to happen, and supposed that some op- 
tical illusion was caused by the state of the atmos- 
phere. In a very few minutes more the lower limb 
of the moon began to be eaten away by a dense black 
shadow, and little by little the obscuration extended 
over the whole orb. The night was unspeakably 
solemn. The moon appeared like a translucent ball 
of amber floating among the constellations. Its posi- 
tion was not far from the Pleiades, Taurus, and Orion. 
The air seemed fuller of historic presences than the 
sky of stars. While we ascended the limestone slopes 
and drove through the gnarled dark ravines this 
eclipse went through its various stages. Before we 
reached the Holy City it had passed away. Above 



22 ORIENT. 

Mount Zion and the Valley of the Kedron and the 
Mount of Olives hung the orb of night in fleckless 
azure. Great Sirius was flashing above Bethlehem. 
The outlook into the heavens above, as into the heav- 
ens within the soul, appeared supernatural. I do not 
know when, by any entrance into Jerusalem, which I 
have approached from various points several times in 
different visits, I have been so impressed as by this 
approach during an eclipse and by this entrance after 
its departure. In that eclipse of the moon I had be- 
fore me a representation of Palestine under the de- 
grading tyrannies of Islam. The full orb in the top 
of the heavens is reformed Palestine. For one I be- 
lieve that we shall see this orb floating unobscured 
just as soon as Turkish power is driven out of Europe 
and Asia Minor. May Providence speed the day of 
such deliverance ! Would God that Palestine were 
under a wise European protectorate ! 

Palestine is a bridge between the Valley of the 
Nile and that of the Tigris and Euphrates. In the 
most celebrated earlier ages of sacred history these 
valleys contained the foremost civilization of the 
earth, except that which was coming into existence 
in Rome and Greece. In the great periods of Old 
Testament history, Egypt and Assyria were constantly 
sending armies over the bridge of Palestine. Intel- 
lectual, social, military, religious influences stormed 
to and fro over this narrow highway, and Palestine 
was able thus to take into its very heart the foremost 
impulses and the best thought of the world, as well 
as the worst. Sometimes trodden down under the 
tyrannies of Babylon, the Holy Land was yet the 



PALESTINE, EGYPT, AND THE FUTUKE OF ISLAM. 23 

teacher of its greatest oppressors. Large parts of its 
population, however, were so infected by the poisons 
of the Valley of the Tigris and Euphrates as to drop 
off from the divine stem and wither, and have drifted 
into oblivion in history. 

Palestine never will be as great politically and in- 
dustrially as she has been until the Valley of the Nile 
and that of the Tigris and Euphrates are again as 
great as they once were in matters political and liter- 
ary, commercial and religious. Fill up the Valley of 
the Nile with a better civilization ; let liberty and 
order be introduced into Asia Minor; let the his- 
toric soil between Mount Lebanon and the head of 
the Persian Gulf be traversed by a railway which 
would not need to be as long as the Pacific Railway 
from Omaha to San Francisco, and would by no 
means be as difficult to build ; let the advance of the 
Occident toward the rising sun bring noble industries 
into Egypt and the old lands once governed by the 
Medes and Persians ; let either Russia or England, 
or any power to whom God in his providence may 
assign this huge task, regenerate the valleys of the 
Nile and Euphrates, and I believe that Palestine may 
again rise and shine politically and industrially, and, 
if God will, religiously. 

As I do not see any immediate prospect of the 
swift regeneration of the Valley of the Euphrates, 
and no very definite promise of that of the Nile, I 
am not one of those who think that Palestine soon, 
under the stimulus of colonization from America or 
Europe, or under incitements from the return of the 
Jews, is to rise to industrial or political greatness. 



24 ORIENT. 

She is, indeed, greatly altered in her physical capac- 
ties. The old terraces are broken down. The foxes 
have their holes and the birds their nests where 
prophecy predicted that they should have them. I 
am not sure that mountainous Palestine can ever be 
made to seem to be a fertile region to those who have 
had homes on the fat lands of the Rhine or the 
Thames, the Hudson or the Mississippi. To-day Pal- 
estine, in large parts, is so desolate that the twitter- 
ing birds cannot fly over it without haversacks. You 
are confronted in nearly all directions with desola- 
tion fulfilling prophecy to the letter. 

Nevertheless, there are signs of improvement in 
many portions of the Holy Land, and on these a 
visitor there dwells with the utmost interest. There 
is a new Jerusalem growing up outside the walls of 
the old city. As travelers here will justify me in 
saying, the new city is much more pleasant as a res- 
idence than the old one, and in everything except 
historic associations is the more dignified part of that 
great collection of stone dwellings on the ancient 
sites of the sacred city. Russia is doing marvelous 
things for the progress of the Greek Church at Jeru- 
salem ; the Armenian and the Romish Churches are 
effecting many improvements there. 

3. Are the scattered Israelites of the world likely 
to be restored in any large numbers to the land of 
their ancestors ? 

A certain amount of immigration is setting into 
the Holy Land from all parts of the Jewish world — 
not a very deep tide nor broad, only a little rill ; and 
not always the young people at that. You go to the 



PALESTINE, EGYPT, AND THE FUTURE OF ISLAM. 25 

Jews' wailing-place, and in the hours you stand there, 
watching the swaying forms of the mourners, as they 
read the lamentations of the prophets over the beau- 
tiful stones of their temple, you notice again and 
again that the proportion of old men is very large. 
With fine quality of fibre, clearness of skin, no vicious 
opaqueness of complexion, such as you meet with only 
too often in the polygamous Arab or Turk, these peo- 
ple are plainly elect even yet ; but they have come 
there to die. They have schools, they teach pupils 
to be sent into various parts of the world ; Jerusalem 
is becoming the headquarters of modern Israel ; but 
there is not depth nor breadth enough in this immi- 
gration to produce swift changes in the Holy Land. 
It appears certain that nothing can regenerate Pal- 
estine to the extent of its capacity, in the present 
state of the Nile Valley and the Euphrates, except 
the withdrawal of all Syria from under the Turkish 
power. 

4. What are the prospects of a railway through 
the Valley of the Euphrates? 

Should the Turkish Empire dissolve and the states 
in the Valley of the Euphrates and in Asia Minor be- 
come prosperous, their interests would gradually force 
the construction of a railway from Constantinople, 
or from the site of ancient Antioch, to the head of 
the Persian Gulf. England has most weighty rea- 
sons for building such a road. It would greatly 
shorten her path to India. It would be a bulwark 
against the aggressions of Russia in Western Asia. 
It would be the line of simplest inter-communication 
between the markets of Asia and Europe. Ex- 



26 OKIENT. 

tended to the west bank of the Indus, and connected 
with the system of rapid inter-communication in 
India, the Euphrates Valley railroad would bring 
London within seven days of Calcutta, and become 
a crowded highway between Occident and Orient. 
Since the capture of Kars, Russia dominates in the 
Valley of the Euphrates ; but a railroad from Con- 
stantinople to India ought to be constructed and pro- 
tected by international agreement between the greater 
and lesser powers that need it most. Americans are 
naturally surprised that a road so easy of construc- 
tion, and politically and commercially so important, 
has not already been built. 

5. What is to be said of the proposed canal be- 
tween the Mediterranean and the Red Sea through 
the Valley of the Jordan ? 

It were unpardonable not to notice the scheme for 
a Jordan canal, although the enterprise may turn out 
to be only a dream. The Suez Canal is easily blocked 
in time of war or cholera. Ships are not allowed to 
move through it at a greater speed than that of five 
miles an hour. A second canal must be opened be- 
tween the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. Eng- 
land, India, Australia, and all other commercial na- 
tions demand this increased facility of intercourse. It 
is thought to be cheaper to cut a canal through Pales- 
tine by the way of the Jordan Valley and the Dead 
Sea than through the sands of Egypt. Open a canal 
from the coast near Acre across the Plain of Esdrae- 
lon to the Jordan, and the waters of the Mediterra- 
nean would be admitted to the Dead Sea. The cut- 
ting would need to be only twenty -five miles long 



PALESTINE, EGYPT, AND THE FUTURE OF ISLAM. 27 

and of no great depth. The head of the gulf of 
Akaba is separated from the Dead Sea by a bold 
ridge and rocky upland not yet surveyed. It might 
be difficult, but of course not impracticable, to cut 
through these. Once beyond this barrier, the .waters 
would flow down the slope from the Red Sea to the 
Dead Sea. The immense depression in which the 
latter lies would be filled. A lake would be formed 
extending to the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. 
Jericho and Tiberias would be covered. The waters 
would rise on the east of the Mount of Olives to 
within ten miles of Jerusalem. That city would thus 
become an important sea-port. It might be made, 
commercially as well as religiously, the joy of the 
whole earth. I venture no prediction as to the suc- 
cess of this scheme, but the London journals dis- 
cuss it gravely, and a responsible company has been 
formed with a British lord at its head, to carry out 
the bold and strategic enterprise. 

6. Does England wish to rule Egypt ? Is the land 
of the Nile, as well as the Suez Canal, likely to fall 
under the control of the British Empire ? 

There are two Englands. A republican England, 
which believes in government of the people, for the 
people, and by the people ; and an England of the 
privileged classes, which has very haughty, imperial- 
istic ideas and precedents. Republican England does 
not wish to annex Egypt. Republican England is no 
more aggressive than our republic is. It is as anxious 
to do justice to every weak nation on the borders of 
the British Empire as we, since the abolition of slav- 
ery, are anxious to do justice to our neighbors. But 



28 ORIENT. 

imperialistic England, sometimes called Tory Eng- 
land, is yet a mighty force in history; and its last and 
probably greatest leader, Lord Beaconsfield, was ac- 
customed to say that England is essentially an Asiatic 
power. That party wishes to make England an 
African power as well as an Asiatic, and it may yet 
have opportunity to do so. It is to be remembered 
that Mr. Bright resigned his position in a proud 
British cabinet because he felt that the moral law 
was not observed in the actions of England toward 
Egypt. Mr. Gladstone, replying to his former col- 
league, said that he and Mr. Bright agreed perfectly 
as to the general proposition that the moral law ap- 
plies to the relations of nations as well as to those of 
individuals ; but that they differed as to the applica- 
tion of that law to the particular case of Egypt. The 
Brights and Gladstones and those who follow them 
will treat Egypt, I have no doubt, with perfect jus- 
tice. I am not assailing the party they represent ; 
but the imperialistic party may come to power in 
Parliament at any time. It has fought unjust wars 
in China sometimes, in India not twice or thrice only, 
in South Africa at least once, and not infrequently 
in the Levant. That party is exceedingly anxious 
that the whole of Egypt, as well as the Suez Canal, 
should be under British control. 

7. When Turkey is driven out of Europe, is it 
possible that the Mohammedan Caliphate may be 
restored to Cairo or Mecca ? 

Nearly every able man that you meet among the 
Arabs and Turks and Egyptians thinks the Caliphate 
likely to become Arabic whenever the Turks lose 



PALESTINE, EGYPT, AND THE FUTURE OF ISLAM. 29 

Constantinople. At Jerusalem I heard of nothing 
so much in the political world as the probable revival 
of such a Caliphate. There are now only about 
2,100,000 of the Turkish Mohammedans in Europe; 
but there are 175,000,000 Mohammedans in the 
world, and of these only 20,000,000 are Turks. What 
if these 2,100,000 Mussulmans in Europe should be 
unseated from the saddle of Constantinople? What if 
the prestige of their present position should be lost? 
Do you believe that the vast majority of Mohamme- 
dans who are Arabs would consent to be dominated 
by 20,000,000 Turks, who would have no Constino- 
ple to give them eclat ? The truth is that the down- 
fall of Constantinople as a Turkish capital would 
very probably be followed by an effort to reestablish 
the Caliphate, and to place it either at Cairo or at 
Mecca ; at least under Arab control, somewhere in 
the more Southern lands of Islam. 

8. What ought to be the attitude of England to- 
ward the Moslem world as a whole ? 

Here is a very recent elaborate English book on 
the future of Islam, written by a gentleman who 
spent a long time in Mecca. (" The Future of 
Islam," by W. S. Blunt. London, 1882.) He en- 
ters into the matter as a politician, and arranges 
175,000,000 of the Moslem world in their subdivi- 
sions, and he makes out a strong case to the effect 
that England ought to aid the reestablishment of the 
Caliphate, to put herself into the position of protector 
of the Caliphate, and thus draw under her general po- 
litical influence the whole world of Islam. That is 
an imperialistic idea. There would be vigorous oppo- 



30 ORIENT. 

sition to it made by republican England. Parties in 
Great Britain are keenly divided about the English 
Egyptian policy ; but it is a sign of the times when 
a cautious conservative like Joseph Cowen, member 
of Parliament, goes to Newcastle, and affirms in a 
public speech that England must annex Egypt, and 
that her doing this will be the destruction of the 
European Turkish Empire and the beginning of a 
North African British Empire. Many a friend of 
the Beaconsfield foreign policy thinks that England 
has as much right to govern in Cairo as she has to 
rule in Calcutta. ( See Dicey's " Egypt," and G. 
W. Vyse's " Egypt.") Many a recent British po- 
litical essay maintains precisely this proposition. 
Egypt is the key to the whole British Empire. 
There is no safety for England's interests in the 
Suez Canal, certain writers think, unless England 
governs the whole of Egypt. She must govern the 
canal or put herself in danger of losing India. So 
considerate, so tender-hearted, so Christian a man as 
David Livingstone once said, in Bombay, with the 
applause of a great audience, that what England has 
done for India she must ultimately do for all Africa. 
Over the taffrail of many a ship I have leaned 
with British officers, naval and civil, who were 
friends of the imperialistic policy in English politics, 
and have heard them say : " We must take Egypt. 
If we do not, France will. We must extend our do- 
minions up the Nile ; we must push our Cape settle- 
ments north, through the Dutch colonies ; and who 
knows but that we shall ultimately annex Liberia to 
Sierra Leone ? " Only the other day, a British ship 



PALESTINE, EGYPT, AND THE FUTURE OF ISLAM. 31 

off the coast of Liberia demanded, in the haughty, 
imperialistic tone which republican England detests 
as much as you and I do, the rectification of a cer- 
tain boundary according to English ideas. We find 
our American Stanley in conflict at the centre of 
Africa at this moment with French authorities. He 
represents Belgium. The great powers of the world 
have their eye on Africa, and England means to have 
her usual share — that is, the lion's half. It is no 
doubt true, my friends, that there is vehement op- 
position to these ideas in England. Many a repub- 
lican English gentleman of Mr. Bright's or Mr. Glad- 
stone's opinions, I have heard say : " We do not want 
Egypt. To annex it to the empire would bring us 
into war with the great powers of Europe. If we 
were to try and keep it, we could not manage it so 
as to make it profitable to ourselves, and the compli- 
cations it might lead to, if we were to take it, no man 
can foresee. Under Gladstone we should never attack 
Egypt. We must hold our place in the Canal — the 
world agrees that we should have free passage through 
it ; but what do we want of Egypt as a whole ? Per- 
haps we ought to control one railway across the 
Delta ; and by and by there may be a railway opened 
down the Euphrates Valley, giving us a new road to 
India." With such a railway open to her use, if not 
under her control, and with another across Egypt, it 
is very difficult to see why England needs the whole 
of Egypt ; but the imperial party has always had 
large wants. "We can govern Egypt," some Eng- 
lishmen say, " better than her own people can ; there- 
fore we ought to do it." Over and over the im- 



32 ORIENT. 

perialistic party has attacked weak nations in the 
Orient, for no other reason than to advance British 
interests. 

What is the secret whisper of diplomacy in Eu- 
rope? "Let England have Egypt; let the Ottoman 
Empire be driven out of Europe ; let Russia have a 
large part of Asia Minor, and, perhaps, Constantino- 
ple, if she will not attack England when she takes 
Egypt ; let France have Tunis ; let Italy have, per- 
haps, Tripoli ; let Germany and Austria move down 
the Danube." Who knows but that Austria and Ger- 
many may unite in making annexations along the val- 
ley of that river, when the Turks are driven out, and 
so be prevented from attacking England, if she wishes 
to put Egypt in her waistcoat pocket ? At any rate, 
it will be essential to fill the mouth of the Northern 
bear with a fat slice of Asia Minor, and, possibly, 
with that huge sweet morsel, for which the bear has 
been longing for so many centuries, a passage out of 
the Black Sea into the Mediterranean and a strong 
foothold in Constantinople itself. Perhaps these re- 
arrangements of the map could be made and no great 
war arise. 

Napoleon used to say: " Whoever governs Egypt 
is best qualified to govern both Europe and Asia." 
He wished to deprive the British Empire of its pos- 
sessions in the East and to restore the ancient road 
to India. He wrote to the French Directory : " By 
seizing and holding Egypt, I grasp and command the 
destinies of the civilized world." Napoleon professed 
the Mohammedan faith when he went into his Egyp- 
tian campaign. There are documents, which lately 



PALESTINE, EGYPT, AND THE FUTURE OF ISLAM. 33 

have come to light, showing that Napoleon had mighty 
schemes of Asiatic dominion, and that this profession 
of the faith of Islam was intended to be the com- 
mencement of the fulfillment of gigantic projects as to 
the world of Islam. If he had succeeded in Egypt — 
if British naval power had brought no speedy end to 
the career of the great Bonaparte in the Valley of the 
Nile — who knows but that his wings would have 
spread ultimately from Gibraltar to the foot of the 
Himalayas ? His ghost walks yet in the shadows of 
the Pyramids, as well as on the banks of the Seine. 
There are men advising England now to follow the 
old Napoleonic ideas. France is too much divided 
against herself to carry out the schemes of her great- 
est emperor. England has the power, and, if she can 
conciliate Germany and France and Italy, and most 
especially Russia, who knows but that she will yet 
execute the mighty plan of the great Napoleon ? 

9. Will Mohammedanism spread more rapidly than 
Christianity in Africa ? What influence will the re- 
forms now in progress in the Valley of the Congo 
have on the future of Islam ? 

If the International Association of the Congo suc- 
ceeds in opening the heart of Africa to Christian civ- 
ilization, Islam will lose its chief recruiting grounds. 
In case the Free State of the Congo becomes pros- 
perous, Christianity is likely to make rapid advances 
in the heart of the Dark Continent, and so to close 
the most important field of Mohammedan propagan- 
dism. The career of Islam is likely to be brought to 
a pause in Africa, as it has been in Europe, and must 
soon be in Asia, by the rivalry of Christianity. 



34 ORIENT. 

10. Has Mohammedanism self-regenerating power ? 
Is Islam likely to be reformed from within ? 

The Wahhabite reformation in the eighteenth cen- 
tury resulted in the decapitation of its leader in front 
of St. Sophia's at Constantinople. The sect he 
founded numbers now only about 8,000,000, and is in 
a state of decline. 

The political power of Mohammedanism is likely 
to receive a severe shock from the perhaps not dis- 
tant dissolution of the Turkish Empire, and yet it 
may endure for ages in Arabia. There is a Moham- 
medan University in Cairo in which many thousands 
of pupils are taught fanatical devotion to Islam. 
The teachers sit at the feet of the pillars in the great 
Azhar Mosque with their scholars gathered in semi- 
circles on the marble pavements around them. This 
theological school is now practically independent of 
Turkish control. It is the headquarters of Arabian 
theology. It has declared itself the home of indepen- 
dent thought in Islam. It supports with vigor the 
Arabic and Egyptian party of reform. At the same 
time, it preserves moderation of tone, and favors no 
schism. On the downfall of the Turkish Empire, 
this school is likely to demand the return of the Cal- 
iphate to Cairo, and to restore to the Arabian mind 
its lost religious leadership. 

Until it gives up polygamy and the Koran, Mo- 
hammedanism carries fatal diseases within itself, but 
when it gives up these it will cease to be Moham- 
medanism. Under severe pressure from Christian 
governments, Islam may abandon slavery and learn 
to live at peace with Christianity ; but, left to itself, 



PALESTINE, EGYPT, AND THE FUTURE OF ISLAM. 35 

it is almost certain to continue to make death the 
penalty for the abandonment of the Mussulman faith 
by any subject of a Mohammedan power. Unless 
polygamy and the Koran are abandoned, the relig- 
ious and the political power of Islam must decline 
together. In presence of the advances of Christian- 
ity, intelligent Mussulmen themselves admit that the 
proper symbol of the present prospects of their faith 
is a waning crescent. 

" The moon of Mahomet 
Arose, and it shall set ; 
While, blazoned as on Heaven's immortal noon, 
The Cross leads generations on." 



ILLUSTRATIVE EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS 
AND JOURNALS. 

Abraham's Oak, Hebron, May 9. 

I HEAR the morning wind in Abraham's oak, and 
think of that most mysterious historical process by 
which first one man, then a family, then a people, 
then a church separated from the world have fulfilled 
to the letter prophecies written in the oldest books 
known to man. Abraham began circumcision of the 
flesh ; his family recognized only God as their ruler ; 
Moses brought the descendants of the family out of 
Egypt organized as a church rather than as a state, 
himself claiming no headship ; the long history of 
the nation, until a king was permitted to be chosen, 
was that of a theocracy ; the kings were contrary to 
the fundamental idea of a society ruled only by the 
King of kings ; after the captivity the Jews were 
much more a church than a state, except in so far as 
Herod, an usurper, and his family broke in upon the 
order of the theocracy ; Christ came, and an uni- 
versal church took the place of the chosen nation, 
was its successor and expansion, in fact ; and that 
church recognizes as its Supreme Ruler only God, 
and teaches circumcision of the heart. 

I care little for difficulties in respect to the method 
of interpreting particular details in this transcend- 



ABRAHAM'S OAK. 37 

ently grand succession of events, all pointing to one 
end. It is historically beyond all dispute that the 
chosen church has succeeded the chosen nation, as 
that did the chosen family, and that the chosen man. 
God intends to do what He does do. History, there- 
fore, is not only a record of what God has done, but 
of what He from eternity intended to do. Provi- 
dence designs to accomplish whatever it does accom- 
plish. Every large and small event, every cause and 
consequence among events, because after their occur- 
rence actual, were before their occurrence inten- 
tional. You can judge, therefore, why I am moved 
by standing where the chosen man lived, and the 
chosen family lie buried. It is not that Abraham 
touched this spot, but that God has touched it. Cir- 
cumcision of the flesh, the type of final circumcision 
of the heart, began here a course of entirely indis- 
putable events, which we are certain that Providence 
intended from the first to bring to pass, because it is 
safe to say that God intends to do what He does do. 
The theocracy begun here in one man spread to a 
family, then to a nation, then to a universal church ; 
and that kingdom promises perpetuity as no other on 
the earth does. Now, as from the beginning, cir- 
cumcision of the heart is the condition of citizenship 
in the theocracy, the only true government on earth 
and the only in heaven. This vast historic process 
is what moves me here ; and, as the oak sounds, ages 
seem to pass through its boughs, and the giant 
branches to stretch their arms, like God's plan, east, 
west, north, south, above all nations and times, not 
excepting yours and mine. I seal up here with this 
letter a leaf from the oak. 



88 ORIENT. 

Bank of the Jordan, Morning, May 6. 
Moses on Mount Nebo yonder, at that death of his 
which was the beginning of centuries of an historic 
life not ended yet ; the weary exiles from Egypt 
passing across this river in a great multitude after 
forty years' wanderings ; Elisha and Elijah and the 
chariots of fire; the baptism here of Him who has 
now for eighteen hundred years governed the best 
portion of the world, — such is the spiritual land- 
scape, as I sit here among the willows, tamarisks, and 
oleanders at the very edge of the swift, murmurous, 
flashing Jordan. You see this historical outlook, 
however, from across the Atlantic as well as I ; let 
me, therefore, describe only the physical scene, al- 
though this is far less impressive than the invisible 
spiritual scene. The Plain of Jericho is only about 
ten miles broad, and is very desolate, except at its 
centre along the west side, where three or four small 
streams burst from unquenchable fountains. Coming 
this morning from Jericho to the Jordan, the road- 
side was almost treeless and verdureless through the 
two miles nearest the river, except only the last two 
or three hundred yards, where a tangled mass of rich 
vegetation makes a scene almost like a park in Eng- 
land or America. The water lies low, and is not vis- 
ible until you are just at its edge. It is brown, but 
not muddy ; it resembles the water of the Nile more 
than that of the Tiber. I bathed at the point where 
the Greek pilgrims annually immerse themselves in 
the river. I walked in a strong current on the stony 
bottom completely across the one hundred and fifty 
or two hundred feet breadth of the sacred stream, 
and plucked some foliage of which I inclose a part. 



THE DEAD SEA. 39 

Shore op the Dead Sea, Noon, May 6. 
I write to you now on the shore of the Dead Sea, 
1,292 feet below the surface of the Mediterranean, 
and 3,800 feet below Jerusalem, and yet the heat on 
this 6th of May, with a south wind blowing, is hardly 
greater here on the edge of the lowest sheet of water 
in the world than it is often in the New England 
June. This is my exceedingly good fortune on this 
journey ; for usually, even in early spring, the air 
here is like the blast of a furnace. Comprehensible 
enough, however, even to-day, as I look at the dim 
haze of evaporation shutting oh the view southward 
at a distance of some ten or twelve miles, is the fact 
that the Jordan is lost here. The river is simply 
drawn up into the thirsty air. The Dead Sea bowl 
has its outlet into the winds and the clouds. The 
mouths of these gape wide coming fiercely heated now 
from Arabian, now from African, now from Syrian, 
now from Persian deserts. In some terrible moment of 
geologic history, the crust of the earth seems to have 
broken here all the way from beyond the south end 
of the Dead Sea to the upper sources of the Jordan. 
The eastern part stood firm and makes now the walL 
of the Moab mountains ; the western sank to a slope 
and forms the descent from the ridge of Palestine to 
the Dead Sea. All the south end of this mysterious 
lake, however, is very shallow, while the rest is very 
deep ; and my theory is that an earthquake and vol- 
canic agency burned and submerged the formerly 
fruitful region at that south end where stood the lep- 
rous cities of the plain. 

Falling on my face with arms folded in this water, 



40 ORIENT. 

I float like so much wood in common water. Lying 
on my back with hands on my hips, I could sleep in 
the centre of the lake ! In a bath here I have 
tried every position, and never knew a hammock so 
restful as these waves. The beach is pebbly ; the 
water clear : the shores silent, rocky, almost verdure- 
less, except for tufts of stunted shrubs at two places. 
I shall mail this letter at Jerusalem, but it is signed 
and sealed here, and made dry by sand from this 
sounding shore. 

Nazareth, May 16. 

Yesterday at sunset, after a ride past the moun- 
tains of Gilboa and through Jezreel, Nain, and Endor, 
I came to the green, solemn, quiet, narrow valley 
among the gnarled hills from which Nazareth looks 
on the wide Plain of Esdraelon. At this moment I 
am writing at the top of the hill behind the town, on 
its northwest side, at a point where a portion of the 
ancient city must have stood, and which, by the com- 
mon confession of travelers, commands positively the 
richest and most extensive prospect to be obtained at 
any one place in all Palestine. 

On every side the view is wonderful : snowy, gigan- 
tic Hermon, 9,376 feet high in the distance on the 
northeast; the rounded, thinly wooded, breez}*- sum- 
mit of Tabor on the east ; the brown, blue, and purple 
wall of the Moab mountains next ; then the great 
rent in which lie the lower Jordan and the Dead Sea, 
plainly enough lower than the Mediterranean, and so 
low as to be both of them invisible from here, though 
the depression seems on that account none the less 
mysterious ; southeast, the brown, rocky slopes of 



NAZARETH. 41 

Little Hermon and of the mountains of Gilboa, with 
the most important battle-fields of Palestine between 
them ; then south and southwest, the twelve miles' 
wide expanse of the green, yellow, and brown Plain 
of Esdraelon ; beyond it on the southwest the eigh- 
teen miles long and partially wooded low ridge of Mt. 
Carmel, terminating in the sea; lastly, blue, shore- 
less toward the west, far-flashing, through two bold, 
wide stretches, one south and one north of Mt. Car- 
mel, the Mediterranean itself. 

Hermon, Esdraelon, and the Mediterranean are the 
commanding objects here. 

But the filling up of the great outlines is soft with 
thick wild thyme on the hills, the deep green of the 
fig-trees and the silver-grayish green of the olives in 
the valleys, rustling yellow and green wheat fields 
on the hill slopes, in fat narrow glens, and on the 
one great plain. 

Think of Esdraelon as of the shape of a barbed 
spear head or Indian's arrow. Its general form is tri- 
angular : its point near the Mediterranean, its broad 
end toward the Jordan. But three lesser plains run 
from the broad end completely to the Jordan Valley, 
or nearly to it ; and these I call the Jennin barb, the 
Jezreel stem, and the Mt. Tabor barb of the spear 
head. In the Jezreel stem, between Mt. Gilboa on 
the south and Little Hermon on the north, a space 
about two miles wide, all the great battles of the 
Plain of Esdraelon have been fought. There King 
Saul was ruined ; there Gideon overthrew the Midi- 
anites ; there Sisera was defeated ; near there Napo- 
leon, with 5,000 men, successfully resisted 30,000 in 



42 ORIENT. 

a conflict lasting seven hours. Mt. Carmel forms 
the southwestern side of the main portion of the ar- 
row head ; and over against it, these Nazareth moun- 
tains constitute the northwestern side. Opposite the 
widest portion of the plain, and looking down from a 
height of 1,637 feet above the sea, this hill of Naza- 
reth, where I write, has incomparably the most glo- 
rious and educating points of view to be found in 
Palestine for that youth and that early manhood 
which were certainly passed here, and which have 
governed now for eighteen centuries the deepest edu- 
cation of the world. 

It was fit that He should look on this great and 
wide sea whose kingdom was to be chiefly beyond 
that shoreless horizon of the west. It was appro- 
priate that the sublimity of Hermon should be gazed 
upon from here by Him whose reign is to be more 
lasting than the mountains that cannot be moved. I 
am amazed as I look north, south, east, and west at 
the natural and historical grandeur, comprehensive- 
ness, and beauty of every part of the view. I think 
whose feet trod these hills of wild thyme and I am 
silent. 

Nazareth, May 20. 

It draws toward sunset as I pause here at the 
edge of a rustling grove of olive-trees in the centre 
of the green, quiet, solemn valley from which Naz- 
areth and its chief hill look on Esdraelon, Tabor, 
Carmel, the Mediterranean, and Great Hermon. In 
all Palestine there is, it is said, no more rich and ex- 
tensive prospect than that I have just named, seen 
from the hill on the north of Nazareth, and certainly 



OUTLOOK FROM NAZARETH. 43 

the other views I have myself had are each inferior 
to that. During the youth and early manhood of 
the life that has changed the course of the ages, He, 
who was chief among ten thousand, must have often 
looked here upon the wide, far-flashing sea, beyond • 
which, in Gentile nations, his kingdom was to have 
during eighteen centuries its chief seats ; and upon 
snowy gigantic Hermon, itself not to be as enduring 
as that kingdom. I am astonished that in reading 
much of Nazareth I never understood how incom- 
parably grand this prospect north, south, east, and 
west is from the hill, on the slope of which Nazareth 
was and is built, its highest houses not looking on 
the wonderful view, but themselves within a bow- 
shot now of the points that command the outlook, 
and anciently perhaps yet nearer. I am impatient 
when I hear this little valley, a mile long and half a 
mile wide, the town on its northwestern side, spoken 
of as secluded. It is secluded only as an eagle's nest 
is at the summit of far-looking mountains. It stands 
on the heights of the ranges extending from Mt. 
Tabor to near the sea, on the north side of the great 
Plain of Esdraelon. If a swallow's nest beneath the 
eaves of a palace is secluded, then is Nazareth so, 
for it is built at the edge of the colossal roof of the 
palace of Palestine. It may be secluded from the 
population, but not from the natural scenery, and es- 
pecially not from the historic sites of the oldest his- 
tory of the Holy Land. This is a shallow valley at 
the summit and on the edge of a range of mountains, 
and Nazareth is thus a mountain city. 

The sun has set, and with it the Mediterranean 



44 OKIENT. 

wind, which makes the heat here very endurable by 
day, goes down in force a little ; at midnight it will 
be cool and still. In the twenty acres of square, flat- 
roofed stone houses which make up the modern Naz- 
areth, the great Franciscan church and convent, and 
a new Protestant church, are the most conspicuous 
buildings. There on the hill-slope are perhaps 5,000 
people, more than half Christian, an exception to the 
rule in this or any part of Palestine, as the town 
itself is anomalous in its superior neatness and or- 
der. A few minutes before I began this letter, I 
met in a path of the copse of cactus yonder a mis- 
sionary lady, plainly Protestant, not yet thirty years 
of age, her face radiant, and possibly twenty girl- 
pupils, many of them with interesting faces, troop- 
ing along with her on a sunset walk. Wheat rustles 
near me ; sheaves are piled not far off ; yonder three 
camels are at this moment being made to kneel down 
to be disburdened of their heavy loads of bundles 
from the yellow harvest. Sheep led by shepherds 
are being called home from the hills to the entrance 
to the town. As I seal up these flowers and leaves 
in this letter they have on them a slight evening 

dew. 

Sea of Galilee, May 19. 

The evidences of Christianity appear to me more 
powerful than ever, as I sit here on the shore of the 
Sea of Galilee, in sight of the elevation where prob- 
ably the Sermon on the Mount was pronounced, and 
of the spots where the cities stood whose destruction 
was predicted, and which have disappeared so com- 
pletely that scholarship to-day is at no agreement 



SEA OF GALILEE. 45 

with itself as to their special localities. The charac- 
ter exhibited in the Sermon on the Mount appears to 
me here, even more vividly than ever before, a perfect 
guaranty of the honesty and good judgment of Him 
who delivered it. Daniel Webster said on his death- 
bed, and caused to be written on his tombstone, that 
the Sermon on the Mount cannot be a merely human 
production. But the honesty and good judgment of 
which there is such proof, made the claim of miracu- 
lous power. Here were the cities which saw the 
mighty works upon which He who delivered the Ser- 
mon on the Mount laid such emphasis that He de- 
nounced in terms the most fearful those who were not 
convinced by these deeds. In the honesty and good 
judgment of the Sermon on the Mount, I find a guar- 
anty for the honesty and intelligence of the claim as 
to miraculous power. This basin of the Sea of Gal- 
ilee, moreover, in the opening of the first century, 
was not a spot in which things could be done in a cor- 
ner. Crowded places of trade, Roman palaces, Jew- 
ish synagogues and villages, flocks of boats, and every- 
where, except along the southeast shore, a murmur of 
men as constant as that of the waves, made the local- 
ity a metropolis. Because it was such, it was chosen 
by our Saviour as the chief scene of his teachings. 
Yet here those mysterious claims were put forth in 
the face of noon and with success, and side by side 
with the Parables and the Sermon on the Mount. 

I have been here three nights and two days, one of 
them a Sabbath, and shall carry away with me vivid 
memories of almost every nook of the lake, and of all 
that is known as to the now obscure special sites, 



46 OKIENT. 

the indeterminateness of which troubles me little, 
as the general scene is yet what it always was. The 
Sea of Galilee is pear-shaped. Lying six hundred 
feet below the Mediterranean, its shores have in 
places a tropical vegetation, contrasting strangely 
with the almost totally verdureless upper portions of 
the cliffs. As the breadth of the lake is from six to 
seven miles, and its length twelve and one half, our 
Saviour in crossing the sea to find retirement for de- 
votion was accustomed to go at least five miles for 
that purpose. 

Damascus, May 28. 

Contrasts of life and death fill all the scenery of 
the East ; but nowhere, not even from the summit of 
the Pyramids, nor in the Jordan Valley, have I seen 
the two set in more magnificent antithesis to each 
other than in this Plain of Damascus, on which I look 
as I write. Rainless for half the year, the level tract 
would be only a desert of drifting sand except for 
the river Barada, which here bursts out upon the 
thirsty acres, and fills a space fifteen miles long by 
seven wide with almost tropical growths of olives, 
figs, oranges, apricots, pomegranates, walnuts, lemons, 
quinces, peaches, mulberries, plums, pears, hazel-nuts, 
apples, cocoanuts, and a long list of other fruits. 

In the centre of this green, heavily- wooded region 
lies Damascus, all its wealth due to the mountain 
river. Bomb never burst with death more effectu- 
ally than the Anti-Lebanon stream here bursts with 
life. Seven canals divide the waters ; and in the 
plain every drop is under strictly legal protection. 
But north, south, east, and west of the space reached 






DAMASCUS. 47 

by the moisture, all is brown and barren as Sahara 
itself. Death sets in at full tide at the edge of life at 
full tide. The mountains, except along the narrow 
gorges of streams, are absolutely verdureless lime- 
stone, rusty in places with gravel. No wonder that 
Mahomet, born in a thirsty land, should have been 
reported to have said, as he stood here : " Man can 
have but one Paradise : mine is above ; I will not 
enter this city." Henry Thomas Buckle, the his- 
torian, at whose grave near Damascus I stood this 
morning, and who died here in his fortieth year, 
lamenting in his last words that his life's work was 
but just begun, said when he stood on this height : 
" This indeed repays me for all the toil and trouble I 
have had in coming here." 

It is near sunset, and all the billowy green of the 
vegetation of the plain shows admirably in the slant 
javelins of radiance poured over the height of Kubbet 
Seijar. Here, looking on the farthest hills risible 
toward the Euphrates, it is not difficult to pass in 
imagination to that river ; thence to the far, gigantic, 
snowy, and ice-bound tops of the Himalayas ; then 
down the slope of China, then across the Japan 
mountains, then above the Pacific to the Sandwich 
Islands, thence to the Rocky Mountain Range, the 
Mississippi, the Great Lakes, the Adirondacks, and 
Boston. In America, my own, everything seems 
strangely near as I look not west, but east, and re- 
member that when one passes far enough east one 
comes out at the west. All other history connected 
with this view of Damascus fades into insignificance 
compared with the one fact that at a place somewhere 



48 OKIENT. 

yonder, but now lost to memory, Paul began the 
career that brought a new life to Europe. 

Euins of Baalbec, May 29. 
The colossal ruins at Baalbec, now that I stand 
among them, impress me chiefly as a symbol of the 
deserved fate of a cruel and polluted paganism, and 
of the building of a true religion upon a false. Here 
are substructures with stones sixty-three and sixty- 
four feet long and thirteen high : probably they are 
Phoenician. Above these lie the ruins of two tem- 
ples, a lesser, two hundred and fifty feet long ; a 
greater, one thousand feet : from famous inscriptions 
which I have just been studying, it is known that 
the temples are Roman, of the age of Antoninus Pius, 
whose name is chiseled here. Last and upon all 
other earlier structures stood a massive Christian 
church or basilica, itself now destroyed, though the 
creed it honored governs the most enlightened parts 
of the world. Thus this accumulation of acres of 
broken pillars, capitals, friezes, pediments, arches, 
and platforms, exhibits in the dates and succession of 
its parts the order it has pleased Providence to follow 
in the religious history of mankind. I know not 
that something of the magnificence of these six great 
columns yet remaining erect out of the larger temple 
is not fitly enough transferred to the best temple of 
the true religious creed. There was a noble side 
even to the false religions, and that can be found 
here ; but the infamies and abominations that these 
stones have witnessed make the ruddy sunset glow 
now falling upon them seem a not unnatural blush. 



BAALBEC. 49 

The world sees no longer the most civilized and pow- 
erful of its nations making it a part of religious wor- 
ship to give up wives and daughters to Baal. In this 
very temple, Roman, Greek, and Phoenician united in 
doing that age after age. I remember the actor who 
was killed here for becoming a Christian ; and also 
the death of Cyril in Constantine's time. The men 
who reared these pillars could not be satisfied, after 
they had murdered Cyril, until they had tasted his 
liver. 

I stand by the side of fragments of columns to the 
top of which, as they lie prostrate, I cannot reach. 
Three men joining hands could not encircle a pillar 
of the large, and hardly one of the nineteen stand- 
ing in the small, temple. Up and up, seventy feet, 
stately stones are shot in smooth shafts, and then 
crowned with a frieze fourteen feet high. More mas- 
sive than those of Greece, the columns here are yet 
of great apparent lightness as seen from afar ; they 
have the solidity of Egyptian and the grace of Athe- 
nian architecture combined. Many critics think them 
finer than anything else of the kind in all Western 
Asia, in Africa, or in Europe. 

On one of the delicately sculptured niches I found 
a dragon and a snake represented well. These rep- 
tiles hiss no longer here in the name of Rome, of 
Greece, and of Heaven itself. Baalbec is a ruin : 
God be thanked ; a ruin ! 
4 



II. 

ADVANCED THOUGHT IN INDIA. 

WITH A PRELUDE ON 

REVIVALS, TRUE AND FALSE. 

THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-EIGHTH LECTURE IN THE 

BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN 

TREMONT TEMPLE, FEBRUARY 26, 1883. 



" We believe that, in his adorable wisdom, our moral Ruler has at- 
tached an inestimable importance to our life on earth ; that all men 
who in this life repent of sin will, at their death, enter on a course of 
perfect and unending holiness ; that all who throughout the present 
life remain impenitent sinners will remain so forever; that both the 
just and the unjust will be raised from death at the last day, will stand 
before the judgment-seat of Christ, and will receive from Him their 
awards according to the deeds done in the body ; so that the wicked 
will go away into endless punishment, but the righteous into endless 
life." — The Worcester Creed, 1885. 

" America has received the true religion of the old continent ; the 
church of ancient times has been there, and Christ is from thence ; 
but, that there may be an equality, and, inasmuch as that continent 
has crucified Christ, they shall not have the honor of communicating 
religion in its most glorious state to us, but we to them." — Jona- 
than Edwabds : Revival of Religion in New England. 



Outside of Indus, inside Ganges, lies 

A wide-spread country famed enough of yore; 

Northward the peaks of caved Emddus rise, 

And southward Ocean doth confine the shore : 

She bears the yoke of various sovranties 

And various eke her creeds. While these adore 

Vicious Mafdma, those to stock and stone 

Bow down, and eke to brutes among them grown. 

Camoens. 

"Wherever there is intelligence, in all stages of life, there dwells 
Christ, if Christ is the Logos. I plead for the eternal logos of the 
Fathers — a more universal Christ, — and I challenge the world's as- 
sent. This is the Christ who was in Greece and Eome, in Egypt and 
India. In the bards and poets of the Rig Veda was He. He dwelt 
in Confucius and in Sakya Muni." — Keshub Chunder Sen. 



PRELUDE II. 
REVIVALS, TRUE AND FALSE. 

Spiritual efficiency is the measure of the worth of 
all creeds, sects, and churches. Efficiency in what ? 
In delivering men from the love of sin and the guilt 
of it. We know beyond a peradventure that without 
this double deliverance there can be no peace under 
the moral law which conscience reveals, and which 
ethical science itself proclaims, and which all the 
pages of revelation flame with, like so many Sinais. 
Lessing said that the ultimate test of the worth of 
sects would be found in their ability to produce new 
men, religious lives, spiritually regenerate popula- 
tions. This is nothing but the yet unfathomed say- 
ing of the Scriptures : " By their fruits ye shall know 
them," — that is, creeds, theologies, sects, churches, 
ages. This is the scientific test, this is the biblical 
test, and to this crucial standard of judgment we must 
bring unflinchingly our luxurious churches, liberalis- 
tic literature, and siren pulpits. 

American theology has been full of faults, which it 
becomes us to remember with humiliation of spirit ; 
but it has attained, also, by the favor of Providence, 
a few peculiar excellences, which it becomes us to 
recognize with gratitude as Divine gifts. These 
have sprung, no doubt, in part from the necessities of 



54 ORIENT. 

our condition and in part from the traits of American 
character. We are regarded as a practical nation, 
and I am willing to maintain the proposition that our 
theology is richer than any other on earth on the 
practical side. As a means of producing, by the bless- 
ing of Heaven, new lives in large populations, I had 
rather have scholarly and aggressive American theol- 
ogy of the New England new-school type, or of the 
Presbyterian type, or of the Baptist, Methodist, or 
Episcopalian, than average German, Anglican, or even 
Scottish theology. Since the days of Jonathan Ed- 
wards and George White field and John Wesley, no 
church on earth has been more distinguished than the 
American for revivals, unless it be the Scottish, in 
the time of the covenanting contest, or possibly the 
German, in a few of its most heroic years. In a wide 
outlook over the effect of presentations of religious 
truth to large populations, American theology, re- 
garded as a summary of the points in which our 
evangelical bodies agree, and judged mercilessly by 
its fruits, need not as yet blush at its comparative 
record. 

Professor Christlieb, of Bonn, is now earnestly en- 
deavoring to introduce into Germany several of the 
methods of the free churches in Great Britain and 
the United States as a means of putting an end to the 
torpor, the barrenness, the iciness of much of the life 
of the state churches in the Fatherland. While a 
few people on this side of the Atlantic seem anxious 
to transplant from Germany the ideas that have pro- 
duced torpor there and are at the bottom of a large 
part of the spiritual ineffectiveness of the European 



REVIVALS, TRUE AND FALSE. 55 

state churches, the most evangelical of the German 
professors are endeavoring to transplant into Ger- 
many the incisive, practical ideas and methods of ag- 
gressive evangelical Christianity as they have been 
developed in Scotland and England, and especially 
under the free-church system of the United States. 
Would to God there were a thousand Edwardses, a 
thousand Whitefields, a thousand Wesleys, a thou- 
sand Lyman Beechers, a thousand Finneys, a thou- 
sand Moodys on the globe, and that ten of each of 
these classes could go around the world as evangelists 
every ten years! [Applause.] 

The churches of different nations are rapidly ac- 
quiring a better knowledge of each other. National 
deficiencies ought to be supplemented by international 
imitations. The learning of the German universities 
is superior to ours. In a great variety of particulars 
we are behind Germany in matters of theoretical and 
scientific import ; but we are in advance of Germany 
in the practical matters of church life. We are in 
advance of England as a whole ; we are ahead of 
every nation on earth in this matter, probably, unless 
it be Scotland, and are likely soon to be in advance 
of Scotland herself. Filling up our deficiencies by 
the study of those traits which supplement our own, 
let us be careful not to underrate the special gifts 
which God has poured out upon American Christian- 
ity ; let us reverence the practical side of aggressive, 
evangelical, Christian work ; let us see to it we do 
not lose the traits which the rest of the world needs. 
We seem to be singled out by Providence for the 
defense of those aggressive methods by which free 



56 OEIENT. 

churches can become strong in free states, and by 
which alone republics can be made safe. Nothing, 
according to my judgment, is more needed to-day in 
German church life, or in the average Anglican, or 
in that portion of the Church of Scotland that is yet 
an establishment, or by Protestanism on the Conti- 
nent of Europe at large, than an imitation of Ameri- 
can, evangelical, aggressive methods. This may look 
like professional or personal bias ; but I am not an 
evangelist, I am not a preacher. I am simply a stu- 
dent of the signs of the times, a lecturer, a friend of 
the church. The American methods of revival work 
in its best form, experience has shown to be superior 
to any which have been developed on foreign shores. 
We need not go abroad for instruction in the practi- 
cal matters of Christian aggressiveness. 

What will be the leading characteristics of the 
church for the times, if we are to take American ex- 
perience as indicating the probable lines of develop- 
ment in Christian aggressiveness in free churches in 
ages to come ? 

1. The church for the times will reach the whole 
population. 

John Wesley said once : " Beware how you invite 
rich men into your churches until you are sure they are 
Christian. Beware how you manage your churches 
in such a way that rich men will become a neces- 
sity to you. If your church buildings are so luxuri- 
ous that you need an enormous income, wealthy men 
will be necessary to you, and they will rule you, and 
then you must soon bid farewell to Methodist disci- 
pline, and, perhaps, to Methodist doctrine." A wiser 



REVIVALS, TRUE AND FALSE. 57 

thing was never said ; a more unpopular thing, per- 
haps, could hardly be repeated at this hour. As I 
am not a pastor or preacher, and as no one can sup- 
pose that I am making oblique personal references 
here, I venture to say that, even in republican Amer- 
ica, and especially in the wealthy and fashionable 
society of cities, there are more than a few luxu- 
rious churches that do not want poor men as mem- 
bers. When a revival occurs, the question con- 
cerning many converts is, not " Are they soundly 
Christian?" but "How much are they worth?" 
[Laughter.] " What is their social standing ? " 
" Am I willing to have one of these converts next me 
in a pew ? " " Are they likely to add anything im- 
portant to the financial or social strength of our soci- 
ety ? " Under the voluntary system, we must have 
money and must draw rich men into the churches ; 
but if they stand there on their money-bags, and ask 
to be measured not according to the height of their 
Christian character, but according to the height of 
these pedestals of worldliness — wealth, social posi- 
tion, hereditary rank, connection with public affairs 
— then I say the time has come for us to cast abroad 
God's truths as scythes, and mow down all these 
unnatural growths ! On the floor of God's house 
he is tallest who is nearest to God. [Loud ap- 
plause.] 

Let nobody suppose that I am opposing rich men 
as a class. A man is a man even though his father 
was rich. [Laughter.] There have been in this 
country and there are now among us rich men who 
are apostles. Lately there fell in New York city the 



58 ORIENT. 

central trunk of a banyan-tree, of which it has been 
well said by Dr. Cuyler that it threw down a stem 
into almost every land of the globe. William E. 
Dodge spread abroad his benefactions, his personal 
Christian effort, his oversight of great religious en- 
terprises, until he was a power in India, a power in 
the Sandwich Islands, a power in Japan, a power in 
half the States of this Union. [Applause.] We have 
many men, not known to the public and not very 
wealthy, who are the almoners of the churches, of 
the philanthropic institutions, of the colleges and the 
schools. On the whole, there is no country in the 
world where wealth is more generous than here, unless 
it be Great Britain, but wealth there is concentrated 
in a privileged class and in a powerful middle class, 
so that a comparison can hardly be made at all 
points with fairness. Everything considered, many 
wealthy men here must be regarded as princes of 
generosity. But the time comes, occasionally, when 
it is necessary to say that men must be measured 
by character, and not by their purses or their so- 
cial pedestals. We must resist, therefore, the idea 
that any church is too good to be enlarged from any 
part of the population of a city. For one, I think, 
there is no church even in Boston that ought to be 
above adding to its membership converts from the 
North End. [Applause.] I have heard of a church 
in New York city that lost a large part of its mem- 
bership by people emigrating up the island; and, 
finally, the population around it became so bad that, 
according to Dr. Pentecost's admirable statement, the 
church itself emigrated. There were no longer any 



REVIVALS, TRUE AND FALSE. 59 

people around it which its members cared to associate 
with. [Laughter.] 

These shrewd pastors behind me are men of brav- 
ery. They have entered the ministry not from finan- 
cial motives, for there are no financial motives to 
lead men into the ministry. They have obtained 
a collegiate education, they have gone through long 
years of professional training, and now they stand as 
God's apostles before the masses of the people. They 
preach to save souls, and yet there are times when 
even their courage is tried by lofty pride in wealthy 
churches, and an unexpressed feeling that some men 
are too corrupt in their past connections, or too low 
in their present social standing, or too poor to be at- 
tractive persons in a luxurious house of God. I call 
any such meeting place for a select few a club-house. 
A luxurious church that is not ready to receive mem- 
bership from any quarter of the population is a so- 
cial preserve, and not a church. [Applause.] 

The worst two evils within the domain of Chris- 
tendom in our time are probably luxurious living 
among church-members and loose thinking among re- 
ligious teachers. When the two go together and we 
have a religious club instead of a church, — a club 
in which, of course, it would be uncourteous to sup- 
pose that there are any sinners, a club that has for- 
gotten that all men are brethren, and that the busi- 
ness of the church is to stand between the living and 
the dead ; when we have a number of such churches 
connected by close social ties, and, perhaps, giving 
direction to great central currents in the religious life 
of a city, — the time then has come to unite all the 



60 ORIENT. 

powers of the pulpit, the press, and the platform 
against the choking of God's most holy truth by 
purse-strings and by ribbons and by dashes of the 
lavender waters of liberalism. One fifth of our pop- 
ulation lives in large cities. Under the voluntary 
system of church life in the United States it is likely 
to be our prevailing trouble that when Judas carries 
the bag and betrays his Lord, he will not always 
have the grace to go and hang himself [laughter], 
and that church members will not usually have the 
grace to hang him. 

2. The church for the times will emphasize the 
hidden half of Christian unity. 

If it cannot secure church union, it will secure 
Christian union. It will call often for union meet- 
ings of all evangelical denominations, and organize 
united efforts for common purposes. 

3. The church for the times will ascertain what 
hinders individuals from accepting Christianity ; it 
will receive questions and organize searching inqui- 
ries as to the current obstacles to conversion. 

If I were a pastor, I should do again what I did 
once, when for a year I was acting pastor : keep a 
question-box open constantly for those timid people 
who cannot go to a pastor's study and discuss their 
difficulties with him. I might have a committee to 
examine the questions and weed out frivolous and 
vexatious ones ; but very few of these would be put 
in after all, as you would find by experience. Sev- 
eral pastors, to my knowledge, have tried question- 
boxes in their churches, and, with a certain wise 
oversight, differing in each individual case, these en- 



REVIVALS, TRUE AND FALSE. 61 

terprises have turned out well. Either in my Sab- 
bath-school or at the church door, I would have a 
question-box always open for anonymous written 
inquiries on the topics discussed in the pulpit or in 
the Sabbath-school. I would bring out in all ways 
the secret intellectual and moral difficulties of my 
parish, and thus I would learn to fire, not into the 
air, but at the white of the eye. Romanism has its 
confessional, and Protestantism ought to be permit- 
ted to have its question-box, to reveal the wants of 
the people. The secret of securing attention is to 
say the thing that needs to be said ; but one method 
of ascertaining what needs to be said is to study 
carefully the secret questions the people are raising. 

4. The church for the times will teach church- 
members to give a reason for the faith that is in 
them. 

There ought to be in every Sunday-school one 
class in Christian apologetics, besides occasional 
courses of lectures on this subject before every con- 
gregation. 

5. The church for the times will teach all church- 
members to converse on personal religion with the 
religiously irresolute. 

In the winter season most of the devotional meet- 
ings of the church, or, at least, one such meeting a 
week, ought to be closed by conversations between 
the church-members present and any religiously ir- 
resolute persons who are willing to remain for such 
conversations. At a devotional meeting, you have 
made an earnest address on some incisive point of 
evangelical truth, and at the close of the service you 



62 ORIENT. 

announce the doxology. But before it is sung you 
give notice that all who are religiously irresolute are 
requested to remain for conversation with church- 
members. If any must leave, they go out while the 
hymn is being sung ; but those who remain, by that 
act open the door to conversation. Without any dis- 
courtesy you may approach such persons on the most 
sacred topics of personal religion. Let your church- 
members converse with every one of those who re- 
main ; go with these members yourself, and hear 
enough of the conversation to know whether wise 
advice is given. You say church-members cannot be 
trusted to do this work ? They can with a proper 
amount of teaching from their pastor. He is a 
wretched church-member who does not know how to 
answer the question, " What must I do to be saved ? " 
But here is a man whose bargains the last week, it 
may be, have run as close to lies as the eyelid to the 
eyeball, and the neighbor he has cheated sits at his 
side, and this shrewd merchant is expected to talk 
with his neighbor on the conditions of salvation. 
The discipline is as good for the merchant as for his 
neighbor. [Applause.] Nothing makes a live man 
out of a dead man so soon as to set the dead man at 
the work of producing life in another dead man. 
These conversations quicken the church immensely. 

6. The church for the times will prepare for re- 
vivals, as the spring prepares in its earlier for its 
later season. 

Religious conversations ought to be made a stand- 
ard part of devotional meetings in the church, in our 
climate, in the winter. But the whole world is not 



REVIVALS, TRUE AND FALSE. 63 

in our climate. There are churches that ought to 
be like the tropical forests, always bringing forth 
fruit, always filled with blossoms, — buds here open- 
ing, fruit there dropping. Our seasons are such that 
in the long evenings of winter we have special op- 
portunities ; and this proves only that our church 
affairs should be managed something as the agricul- 
tural affairs of our zone are. Let us always be pre- 
paring to put in the seed, or putting in seed, or reap- 
ing the harvest. 

7. The church for the times will protect the fruit 
of revivals, as the summer ripens the births of 
spring. 

My central idea concerning revivals is that what 
are called the evils of revivals, by those who oppose 
them, usually arise because proper work has not been 
done before the revivals, or is not done after them. 
A revival is only like the opening of the clouds in 
the spring and the beating down of the sunlight ; or 
like the dropping of the gentle showers and the ver- 
nal rains. What will the sunlight, what will the 
rain do without the deep planting of the seed, or 
without the careful watching of the fields after the 
tender shoots have sprung forth ? 

Mr. Moody's revivals have turned out thoroughly 
well in every case where they have been followed up 
properly. A few men say his work here or there has 
not eventuated well. Did the pastors follow it up ? 
Was the seed deeply planted before he came ? He 
is nothing but the shower, he is nothing but the 
opening in the clouds. God seems to speak through 
some evangelists ; He gives them power to open the 



64 ORIENT. 

heavens and let the sunlight in upon spiritual fields. 
By endowment of Heaven, this capacity was in Ed- 
wards, it was in Whitefield, it was in Wesley and 
Finney, and it is in many an evangelist of to-day, 
thank God ; but we must remember that the plant- 
ing of the seed and the protection of the green shoots 
are quite as important as allowing the sunlight and 
rain to fall upon the fields. In this city I happen to 
know that certain revered pastors — who sit on this 
platform at this moment and whom I must not name 
— have followed up carefully the converts who came 
forward in their fields of labor in Mr. Moody's re- 
vival. If you go to these pastors and ask what has 
been the result of Mr. Moody's effort here, they will 
say it has been glorious. In two or three instances 
reformed drunkards have become large benefactors 
of the churches, both spiritually and financially. 
The men who have followed up these converts give 
you a good report of Mr. Moody's work; but the 
men who folded their hands, the men who said, " Let 
the harvest take care of itself," the men who were 
immersed in luxurious lives and had torpid congrega- 
tions, and who did not care to soil the skirts of their 
churches with any acquisitions from unpopular por- 
tions of our masses, — these persons, if you approach 
them, have usually only a cold answer to give to 
any question as to the effect of Mr. Moody's work 
here. I care nothing for the answers of such men. 
I repudiate such men as authorities on this theme. 
Greatly as we in America revere Mr. Moody's work, 
I found in Edinburgh deeper reverence for it than 
I find, on the whole, in Boston. I found in Lon- 



REVIVALS, TRUE AND FALSE. 65 

don, on the whole, higher esteem for it than I have 
been able to find, usually, in New York. On both 
sides of the Atlantic, wherever I have been in fields 
he has visited, I have had abundant proof that his 
work, when followed up by the local pastors, has 
eventuated successfully. Look at Oxford ! Were not 
the young men reached there ? Why were they 
reached? Chiefly because God's truth was boldly 
preached and made fruitful by his Spirit ; but partly, 
also, because Mr. Moody's hands were held up by 
men of position in the Established Church. Were 
his hands held up here? Did Harvard professors 
stand by him here, as Oxford professors stood by him 
in the British Islands, as Edinburgh professors stood 
by him in Scotland? I happen to know a dozen 
men of great learning and culture who thought it an 
honor to go into the inquiry meetings and converse 
with the religiously irresolute in Edinburgh and in 
London. [Applause.] 

Dr. Crafts, of Brooklyn, lately sent out an hun- 
dred letters to preachers and Sabbath-school super- 
intendents, with the question : " How many of you 
came irrto the church during periods of religious 
awakening, commonly called revivals ? " The answer 
was, four sevenths. As I part from this theme allow 
me to ask this audience the same question. I will ex- 
plain exactly what I mean to do, so that none of you 
can suppose I am trying to catch any of you unawares. 
I am about to ask all Christians in this assembly to 
rise — all Christians, Protestant or Romish, evangel- 
ical or unevangelical. This is putting the case very 
broadly and at a disadvantage to the propositions I 



66 ORIENT. 

am defending. Then I am to ask all those Christians 
to sit down who did not come into the church in 
some period of religious awakening, by which I mean 
a period in which a considerable number came into 
the church under special effort. I do not mean a 
month's special effort, or that the effort was in the 
Methodist form, or the Congregationalist, or the 
Presbyterian, or the Episcopalian. I mean simply a 
religious awakening, occurring under some particular 
measures intended to make religion a personal mat- 
ter. How many of the Christians in this assembly 
came into the church under such effort ? I believe 
we shall find that more than half did so. 

8. In every religious service the church for the 
times will make religion a personal matter, and will 
preach so as to secure immediate decision of the soul 
to accept God in Christ as both Saviour and Lord. 

We have had preaching to the intellect, we have 
had preaching to the emotions, we have had preach- 
ing to the fancy ; the time is coming when no preach- 
ing will be considered thoroughly evangelical unless 
it is addressed to the will. [Applause.] In every 
religious service religion ought to be made in some 
way a personal matter. I would have every prayer 
include in it petitions implying the total self-surren- 
der of the will to God. It is a serious conviction of 
mine that we might improve the ordinary form of 
closing public religious services. Perhaps it is not 
too much to say that no man has a right to pronounce 
the benediction. We have a right to invoke it ; but 
we can invoke it effectively only by total self-surren- 
der to God. I wish every religious service were 



REVIVALS, TRUE AND FALSE. 67 

closed by a form including the petition " Thy king- 
dom come, thy will be done in every one of us this 
instant as in heaven ; " and then a moment of silent 
self - consecration, implying that every individual is 
reined up to the duty of immediate, total, affection- 
ate, self-surrender to God as both Saviour and Lord, 
after which I would have the benediction invoked 
upon all such as have thus surrendered. In Calcutta, 
Keshub Chunder Sen, leader of the theistic move- 
ment in India, has arranged a ritual for his people, 
who are not Christians, but simply believers in a per- 
sonal God and providence and prayer. At one point 
of that service, all the people present rise and utter 
the words " Give us light." They then remain in 
silent prayer for some seconds. A little later the 
congregation, with the minister, call out : " Victory to 
God ! Victory to God ! " Then there is another si- 
lent prayer. At the end of that inexpressibly solemn 
act of devotion the pastor says : " Peace ! Peace ! " 
This has the spirit of Christianity ; I wish that in our 
Christian rituals there were something like it. Unless 
we have this address to the will, we leave out the 
most effective portion of every religious service. Only 
those who say "Victory to God ! " deserve to have or 
can have the benediction effectively pronounced over 
them. I am not a friend of innovations; but I wish 
exceedingly that in the ordinary closing of religious 
exercises there were always something to rein up 
every hearer to total self-surrender to God. 

Now, my friends, you will favor me with this ex- 
pression which I have explained in advance, and on 
which I have allowed you time to think. Will all 



68 OEIENT. 

Christians in this assembly please rise ? [Appar- 
ently 2,500 of an audience of over 3,000 rose.] This 
assembly represents all evangelical bodies. It is a 
most cheerful fact that certainly more than 2,000 
people rise here as Christians. Will such of you as 
did not come into the Church in some period of spe- 
cial religious awakening, commonly called a revival, 
such of you as did not come in through a gateway of 
special religious effort, sit down, and will the rest 
remain standing? [The request was heeded.] At 
least four sevenths of the 2,000 or more Christians 
of this assembly have remained standing ; two thirds, 
some of the gentlemen behind me say ; some, three 
fourths. I thank you most cordially for this expres- 
sion. Any form of special religious effort that has 
brought half or four sevenths of our Christians into 
the church is sufficiently justified in experience by the 
Divine approval. 



LECTURE II. 

ADVANCED THOUGHT IN INDIA. 

Through the gate of the Red Sea, Sinai on the 
left, the Pyramids on the right, you enter the Indian 
Ocean, the North Star hanging low behind your 
ship and the Southern Cross rising from the heated 
horizon in front. 

At Aden you see a British Gibraltar — an island 
that is little more than a cinder, but carved into mili- 
tary might ; heavy batteries frowning from the lower, 
middle, and upper slopes ; great reservoirs for water 
in the parched red rock ; 30,000 people, large military 
detachments, huge men-of-war, a position that domi- 
nates Arabia and Northeastern Africa, and, of course, 
insures a proper respect for British interests in the 
whole length of the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. 

Nowhere on the highways of travel around the 
earth do you find a hotter region than between the 
sands of Arabia and those of Sahara. On your tour 
of the world, you afterward cross the Equator, once 
in the region of the East Indies and again south of 
the Sandwich Islands ; but you suffer little from 
heat in the former case, and, in the latter, under the 
cool trade-winds from the Andes, you wear your 
ulster in the evening as you pass the Line. In the 
Red Sea, however, it is possible that you may need 



70 OEIENT. 

a double Scotch cap, with the interstices filled with 
pounded ice, to prevent sun-stroke. In spite of the 
broad punkahs which servants of the ship now swing 
above the tables in the cabin, in spite of your con- 
stant use of the wide fans of the Orient, in spite of 
your dressing as nearly as possible in gauze, in spite 
of your punctual attention to cold baths, in spite of 
your total abstinence from intoxicating drinks and 
wine and beer, you need to guard against sun-stroke 
by a thick sun-hat. At Suez the fashion of careful 
travelers to the Orient is to put on solar helmets. 
You begin there to carry everywhere in the sunshine 
an umbrella, covered on the outside with white. 
There is an uncompromising fierceness in the sun- 
beams, utterly unknown to one who has not been in 
the Tropics ; something searching and deadly charac- 
terizes the impact of the javelins of light and heat even 
at sunrise, but especially when the king of the broil- 
ing day is directly overhead or in the mid-afternoon 
sky. " Stand out of the sunshine ! Keep out of the 
glare of the sun ! " You hear constantly these novel 
directions given in anxious tones to inexperienced 
children. Without being forced, as many are, to use 
protecting spectacles, you fall into the habit of hold- 
ing your eyelids half closed, a tendency which may 
become such a habit as to endure after your return to 
temperate latitudes. You are sometimes in a ship 
that moves with a slow, hot wind, and so you have no 
relief afforded by the breezes of the ocean. Occasion- 
ally a ship has been known to pause in the Red Sea, 
reverse its course, lose time, and move against the 
wind for a few hours, in order to relieve its passengers 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN INDIA. 71 

from the effects of the intolerable heat. There is, 
however, in the Red Sea, as there is not in the best 
season at Bombay and Calcutta, a great difference 
between the temperature at night and by day. The 
sands radiate heat rapidly. There is an Arabian 
proverb which says that " The servant in the cool- 
ness of the morning forgot to provide water for the 
heat of the day." You make the most of the slight 
relief the nights give ; you sleep on deck, and take 
every precaution ; but, even in December, when the 
sun is south of the Equator, you come out of this 
terrific funnel between the two hottest deserts of the 
world, exceedingly glad to find yourself in average 
health. If you enter the open Indian Ocean without 
anything like dizziness or the approaches of sun- 
stroke, you may regard yourself as probably proof 
against the heats of India in its cooler season and of 
the Equator on the sea in any part of the world. 
Whoever has gone through the Red Sea in August 
unscathed is likely to be able to look the sun in the 
eye anywhere on the planet. 

How shall I approach the land of pearls and palms, 
of religions more ancient than Christianity, and of 
philosophies which were old when Greece was young ? 
You are afloat on the Indian Ocean, and Hindustan 
has not yet come into sight. The dim tawny head- 
lands of Arabia pass out of view. The noons, under 
the soft monsoon, are temperate in heat ; the sea is 
gentle in its mood day after day. In the tropic 
azure, Orion blazes almost overhead every evening 
before you leave the decks. You gaze long at the 
marvelous flashing of Sirius and Canopus, Aldeb- 



72 ORIENT. 

aran and Procyon. Jupiter, at nine o'clock, is a 
great flame directly above the masts ; red Mars burns 
lower down in the Eastern sky. The Pleiades are 
north of you when they pass the zenith. An hour 
before dawn, on the morning after you leave Aden, 
you behold for the first time the holy splendor of 
the Southern Cross. Ursa Major, at about the same 
hour, illuminates the sinking northern sky. On the 
Mediterranean shore of Egypt the apparent height 
of the North Star is three of your hand's breadths, 
the arm stretched fully out. At Aden, as you enter 
the Arabian Sea, its height is hardly more than one 
hand's breadth. 

It is a trait of the sensitive traveler that he is 
more or less distinctly conscious of all that is hap- 
pening under the meridian he is crossing. Your 
soul touches on your left thirsty Persia, the plains 
of Tartary, the forests of the Ural Mountains, the 
polar ice. On your right the waves and winds have 
unobstructed course all the way from the frozen seas 
beneath the Southern Cross. You dream of Mada- 
gascar, Mauritius, Paul and Virginia, Cape Moun- 
tain, the sources of the Congo and the Nile. You 
behold Livingstone dying while on his knees in 
prayer for the regeneration of Africa. You see Stan- 
ley crossing the Dark Continent, and now founding 
colonies and suppressing the slave-trade on the banks 
of the Congo. 

In spite, however, of all else that in sky and sea 
and beyond the sea rivets your attention, your 
thoughts are gradually absorbed by India. You hear 
in imagination more distinctly with every sunrise 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN INDIA. 73 

the rustle of its palms and bamboos and mango- 
trees, the flow of its rivers, the mysterious voices of 
its past, the multitudinous stir of its present millions, 
the advancing footsteps of its future. 

You have in your hand a globe, the companion of 
many a studious hour, and you notice that India, 
from north to south, — that is, from the top of Cash- 
mere to Cape Comorin, — is as long as a line from 
Boston to Pike's Peak. A line of similar length on 
the map of Europe extends from Gibraltar to Con- 
stantinople. The breadth of India, from the western- 
most mouth of the Indus to the easternmost mouth, 
of the Ganges, is slightly more than the distance from 
Boston to Omaha, or from Paris to St. Petersburg. 
The distance from Bombay to Calcutta is only that 
from Boston to St. Louis. 

Gibbon estimated that imperial Rome, at the height 
of her power, governed only 120,000,000 of men. 
The British Empire governs in India alone 250,000,- 
000. India is only as large as all Europe, less Rus- 
sia ; but it has a population as large as that of Eu- 
rope. In a territory only about as large, to speak 
roundly, as that of the United States east of the 
Mississippi and Missouri, India has five times our 
present population. You think that here would be 
superb opportunity for usefulness, if only the English, 
language were understood by the masses of the peo- 
ple. You ask whether it will be possible to gather 
large assemblies to listen to discussions on religious 
and philosophical themes and exclusively in the Eng- 
lish tongue. You are in great doubt as to what 
may happen, but you are resolved to be a student, at 



74 ORIENT. 

least ; and yet you leave open half your time for 
the work of lecturing. In regard to this latter mat- 
ter, you make no predictions ; you promise yourself 
absolutely nothing. You have been told in Edin- 
burgh and elsewhere that there is no opportunity on 
earth for usefulness, through English lectures, like 
that in India at the present moment ; but you have 
not credited this statement. You have regarded it 
as, perhaps, only an indication of sentimental attach- 
ment to India, or of a desire to encourage you in a 
difficult enterprise. 

It is a glorious morning in the Orient. Far over 
the purple and azure waves toward the sunrise you 
see for the first time the Western Ghauts, that jagged 
ridge which shuts out the ocean from India on the 
west. A little later the distant towers and domes 
of a city begin to come into view at the foot of low 
hills, clad with palms and mango-trees and a great va- 
riety of strange tropical vegetation. In another half 
hour, after turning a picturesque point of land, you 
are afloat in a magnificent harbor, large enough to 
hold all the British fleets and alive with shipping of 
all nations. You land at a massive granite pier, at 
the edge of a great esplanade, in the second city of 
the British Empire — queenly Bombay. 

You have landed with speed ; otherwise you would 
have been met by a steam launch, containing a lecture 
committee. That launch is on the water and chases 
you in, and before you reach your hotel the commit- 
tee overtakes you. To make a long story short, that 
evening and the next day about a dozen prominent 
merchants, preachers, and civilians, arrange for a 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN INDIA. 75 

course of six or eight lectures, to be given in one of 
the largest halls, and the city is at once placarded 
from end to end — with what subjects ? Philosophical 
themes, religious topics, nothing very sensational in 
the titles, no music promised, a prominent presiding 
officer mentioned in connection with each lecture — 
an important matter in any British community ! 

The great esplanade of Bombay is surrounded by 
magnificent government buildings, with deep veran- 
das, under screens. Everything in the architecture 
suggests the necessity of protection against heat. The 
city is young. It was not built and rebuilt ; at least, 
the British part was not. This municipality is not 
as old as Boston. You admire the broad streets,' laid 
out by British engineers. Of course, in the native 
quarters you have hovels and real squalor, but still it 
is not the squalor of our populations of the temperate 
zones, for these children have no filthy clothes upon 
them ; they have no clothes at all, except on their 
heads. Literally, the only wardrobe of seven children 
out of ten on the streets consists of anklets and ear- 
rings. 

Bronze, fine bronze, admirable for its quality — 
that is the complexion of these Hindus of the lower 
class. It is not a coarse, oleaginous bronze. You 
learned to admire this bronze when you were at Aden 
and saw the Somali boys by scores swimming around 
your ship. They dive for a shilling or a penny. You 
throw a piece of silver from the upper deck, and be- 
fore it has sunk out of reach the Somali boy catches 
it in the green depths of the sea, in spite of the dan- 
ger from sharks. You ask him to dive under your 



76 ORIENT. 

ship, or, as the sailors say, to write his name upon 
the keel of the steamer, and in a few seconds after 
disappearing at one side he comes up on the other side 
of the vessel. These boys swarm on deck. You can- 
not avoid patting your hand on their curly heads, 
and sometimes on their shoulders. It is a very fine 
bronze, this. You find the same in Hindustan, only 
a little finer. 

The first thing that impressed me in India was the 
good quality of the temperament of the Hindu. He 
is supple, subtle, fine, keen-edged. He is not strong. 
He is enervated, no doubt, by his child-marriages, by 
the climate, by his diet of rice, by frequent famines, 
and by poor conditions among the lower classes gen- 
erally. You find many Brahmins, however, who have 
this same excellent quality of organization, together 
with normal size of body and brain. They have 
physical vigor — not equal to that of the Briton, or 
German, or American ; but they are forceful, as well 
as keen-edged. The Sikhs and the Rajpoots are tall, 
well-developed, strong men. The Gourkas, from the 
slopes of the Himalayas, are short, but thick-set and 
famed for military valor. The Marathi Brahmins, 
the very best of the Brahmin class, in the central por- 
tion of India, have in many cases the real vigor of 
mountaineers. 

It is not true that all the natives of India are 
sheep ; nevertheless, your first impression is that 
they are. The Hindu is ovine, the Briton is bovine, 
and it is not a wonder that the latter rules the for- 
mer. The Bengalee is especially timid and inclined 
to avoid all physical contests. He makes a poor 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN INDIA. 77 

soldier. He usually yielded almost without opposi- 
tion to those who oppressed him in the days before 
the East India Company entered upon its career in 
Hindustan. To this hour he has the reputation of 
being, physically, a poltroon ; but in other respects 
he has a high character. He makes the best account- 
ant among the races of India. He is a good teacher; 
he is naturally a writer and speaker. You may say 
of the Bengalee that he is born with an essay under 
his arm and a speech on his lips. There are all classes 
of Hindus, of course ; but the general feeling you 
have, at first, is that these people would not be great, 
even if they were Christians. After weeks and 
months, however, that impression changes. If your 
experience is like mine, you come to feel that if child- 
marriages were abolished, if polygamy were driven 
out of all parts of India, if the diet were somewhat 
changed, if the conditions of life were improved, you 
might develop, on the Ganges especially, and even 
further south, a stalwart race, quite worthy of their 
origin on the slopes of the Himalayas, north of the 
great wall, which shuts out India from the rest of 
Asia. 

The day comes for the opening of your course of 
lectures in Bombay, and you expect a great humilia- 
tion. You drive down at night along a back street, 
in order to be ready to hide your diminished head ;. 
but you find that the large hall which has been en- 
gaged is already overflowed and that hundreds are 
being turned away. I am anxious to do justice to 
India, and by showing what you experience there I 
shall show what India is. You say this gathering 



78 ORIENT. 

must have been drawn together by the name of the 
chairman. It is, of course, not a ticketed assembly. 
Here are, you think, before you go into the house, 
the English people of Bombay, who, perhaps, may 
have thought it something of a novelty to listen to a 
lecturer from America, and it may be have come out 
to sneer. You have probably more enemies in this 
dense gathering than friends. You go before that 
assembly, as you go before every one, if your expe- 
rience is like mine, resolved to remember your ene- 
mies, and never to overrate the friendship of any au- 
dience before which you may stand. But you enter 
the house and look about almost in vain, outside the 
platform, for an English or American face. Red 
and white turbans are packed to the roof. You 
turn to your chairman and say : " Where are the 
police ? There will be disorder here if I deliver to 
this audience the lecture I had in mind. I may not 
please all these Hindus." " Speak here as you would 
in London. Speak here as you would in Edinburgh," 
he replies. " There is no need of policemen here. 
There are four in the hall ; but they will not be re- 
quired. This audience will be as orderly as any you 
ever met in the British Empire." But you say: 
" They cannot understand English, all of them ; and I 
cannot promise, knowing nothing of this assembly, to 
keep the house quiet. I am a perfect novice here and 
might easily make very grave mistakes." The chair- 
man says : " Go forward as you would in London or 
Edinburgh. I will be responsible for the rest." 

You soon find that a Bombay Hindu audience un- 
derstands English apparently as well as this Boston 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN INDIA. 79 

assembly does. In the sea of Oriental faces, keen, 
incisive countenances flash out. The bronze glows 
like colored porcelain with a light behind it. Bright 
eyes meet yours, and gleam responsively under the 
red turban, and not less under the Parsee hat. The 
Parsees, by the way, are simply a fragment of the 
old Persian race, somewhat acclimated in India. 
They are the foremost mercantile class, and are well 
represented here. Nearly all of them speak English 
perfectly. After addressing this assembly for a few 
minutes, you come to feel that there is no danger of 
disorder or of your being misunderstood. The next 
night a considerable number of seats are sold, in order 
that those people who cannot come until late may 
have an opportunity of getting places. In this way 
your lecture committee has a slight income ; but you 
have made up your mind not to charge anything for 
your work on missionary soil. There is an income 
from the necessary sale of seats to provide people 
with an opportunity of being present under pleasant 
circumstances ; but, without this, there would have 
been nothing to provide for the expenses, except what 
generous Christian merchants and civilians gave for 
the support of the course of lectures. After three 
nights in this commodious hall, you are turned out 
of it, on account of the numbers who are not able to 
get in. You go into the Town Hall, the very largest 
assembly room in the city, holding about as many as 
Tremont Temple, and your friends find it necessary 
to go there early, if they are to obtain seats. Large 
numbers of the audiences have only standing room. 
Each lecture is nearly two hours long. A series of 



80 ORIENT. 

six lectures closes with a call for an additional 
course. 

At last, terribly overworked, you fly out of Bom- 
bay, supposing that this is the only city in India, un- 
less it be Calcutta or Madras, that will give you audi- 
ences that understand English thoroughly well. You 
have a similar experience in Calcutta, a similar one in 
Madras. You are convinced that in the great Presi- 
dential cities English is well enough understood to ena- 
ble you to address audiences in that tongue. Between 
Bombay and Calcutta, however, you give lectures to 
fine audiences in Poona, Ahmednagar, Lucknow, and 
Allahabad. Even in fanatical Benares, on the bank 
of the Ganges, and afterward in Southern India, in 
Bangalore and Madura, you have crowded assemblies, 
made up almost exclusively of natives, who listen to 
the severest things you are inclined to say concerning 
the hereditary misbelief and the imported unbelief of 
Hindustan. During three lectures in the immense 
Town Hall at Calcutta many hearers are obliged to 
stand, and the most distant people in your audience 
are two hundred feet away from your platform, and 
they are natives. You have Keshub Chunder Sen 
to move a vote of thanks at your last lecture. You 
come, little by little, into the feeling that the English 
tongue is the mightiest weapon of public usefulness 
in Hindustan to-day. 

Nowhere, except, perhaps, in the case of the Span- 
ish in South America, has a language spread more 
rapidly through great populations not born with it 
on their lips, than English has in India. The Span- 
ish grandees would not condescend to learn the Ian- 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN INDIA. 81 

guage of their servants. Thus the servants were com- 
pelled to learn the language of the masters, and so 
even savage tribes in South America now sometimes 
speak Spanish. Surrounded constantly by far too 
obsequious and cringing Asiatics, the average British 
official in India does not suffer from a deficient sense 
of his own personal dignity. He is not eager to 
learn the dialects of his multitude of servants. They 
must, therefore, learn English. The classical tongues 
of India, which are the admiration of all scholars, 
and almost objects of worship to Brahmins, are, of 
course, not the vernacular. Hindustanee has wide 
prevalence, but no one inferior tongue is of universal 
currency. India has sixty distinctly different lan- 
guages and more than one hundred dialects. Uni- 
versity instruction, as conducted under British au- 
thority, always requires a knowledge of English. 
There is universal demand for instruction in Eng- 
lish among the educated classes. A knowledge of it 
is an avenue to employment in the great mercantile 
houses and in the schools and in the civil service. 
Two of the greatest names among those of men to 
whom India is indebted for the early introduction of 
English into her schools and governmental papers are 
Alexander Duff and Lord Macaulay. 

One year ago to-day, my friends, fleeing out of the 
steaming vat of Calcutta, it was my fortune to begin 
a short period of rest in the Himalaya Mountains. 
I summarize my memories of India, usually, by go- 
ing back to Darjeeling and looking abroad over all 
Hindustan, as if the whole of it were in sight. 

The Himalayas, as a mountain range, dazzle both 

6 



82 ORIENT. 

Alps and Andes, not out of sight, but into a position 
of positive inferiority. On a hill in a park at Dar- 
jeeling, among tea plantations, you have in view 
twelve mighty peaks, every one of which is over 
20,000 feet high. You count twenty stupendous, far- 
flashing summits, every one overtopping the giant 
of the Alps. Mont Blanc is less than 16,000 feet 
high, but Kinchinjunga, on which you look through 
the unobscured azure of two days, is 28,000 feet in 
elevation. Mount Everest, supposed to be the high- 
est peak on earth, is 29,000 feet high, — five miles of 
the earth's crust thrown into the azure. You remem- 
ber Mont Blanc as seen from Geneva and Chamounix, 
and you have intense reverence for Switzerland, its 
waterfalls, its lakes, its avalanches, its holy solitudes, 
its stealthy glaciers, its everlasting snows, its roseate 
peaks. When you are in presence of the Himalayas, 
Switzerland seems to you like a toy. Here are 
mountains surpassed nowhere on earth, and nowhere 
in the human range of vision, except in the moon. 
The lunar mountains, which are higher than any on 
the earth, are rolled over our heads nightly and are 
strangely unappreciated. Except the Yosemite Val- 
ley, there is no mountain scenery that I compare in 
my secret thoughts with the Himalayas. Of course, 
the summits around the Yosemite are not as grand 
in height, but there is a certain impressiveness in El 
Capitan, and a combination of beauty and sublimity 
in the valley, which make me rank the Yosemite sec- 
ond to the Himalayas, while I place all that Switzer- 
land can show as third in dignity among the mighty 
scenes in mountains on our globe. 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN INDIA, 83 

Look abroad from the Himalayas, and what do you 
see ? Three things. First, this unsurpassed range 
of mountains ; next, the northern Indian plain — his- 
toric, electric with mighty associations, the cradle of 
great political changes, the birthplace of great relig- 
ions, a brown and green expanse, fringed with palms 
and bamboos, through which flow the Indus and the 
Ganges ; then, thirdly, the southern portion of the 
peninsula, high mountains on the west side, low ones 
on the east, and a triangular stretch of high table- 
land between them, called the Deccan. 

As your memories take you back to it, what is In- 
dia ? It is Bombay, with its magnificent harbor, its 
Elephanta caves, its stately English government of- 
fices, its aristocratic bungalows on Malabar Hill, its 
Parsee Towers of Silence, on which the vultures 
strip the flesh from the bones of the dead ; its Par- 
sees worshiping on the wharves and shores at the 
setting of the sun, with their faces turned toward the 
west ; its Hindus burning corpses ; its multitudinous 
mixture of sects and nationalities, like that of Alex- 
andria of old. It is Allahabad, with its junction of 
the Jumna and the Ganges crowded with the festi- 
vals of religious pilgrims. It is Delhi, with its ruins 
of Saracenic grandeur, its stately Kutub Minar, — a 
campanile more imposing than Giotto's famous tower, 
— its magnificent mosques and marble palaces, and 
its conflict of creeds, philosophies, and politics. It is 
Lucknow, with its pathetic memories of the siege of 
1857. It is Cawnpore, with its monuments to British 
martyrs. It is Agra, with the tomb of Akbar and 
the peerless Taj Mahal, a structure of which Bishop 



84 ORIENT. 

Heber said, most justly, that " it was designed by- 
Titans and finished by jewelers." It is Benares, 
with its stately residences for the few and its squalid 
streets for the many ; its gaudy temples, with frivo- 
lous or filthy rites ; its crowds of pilgrims, bathing in 
the Ganges ; its burning ghats, where the dead are 
reduced to ashes. It is Calcutta, with its palaces and 
schools and fleets and toiling thousands. It is Ma- 
dras, with its surf-boats, its vigorous missions, its firm 
grasp on both the land and sea. It is the sacred 
Ganges, a wide, tawny, shallow flood, rolling through 
a brown and dusty tropical plain. It is a toiling pop- 
ulation of pinched and oppressed lower classes. It is 
a decaying native nobility, their magnificence slowly 
paling under British rule. It is Occidental civiliza- 
tion making fatal inroads upon Oriental fashions. 
It is caste going out of date. It is Christianity sub- 
duing a subtle but effete paganism. It is the Hima- 
layas, with their inspired heights and solitudes under 
sun and moon, contemplating all and prophesying 
better ages to come. India signifies the commingling 
of Occident and Orient ; India is already the rudder 
of reform for all Asia. You become passionately at- 
tached to this land for its own sake, and because you 
feel that whoever is useful in India is reaching Asia 
at large. 

As you look abroad over India from the Himalayas, 
the organizing dates of her history seem to be writ- 
ten in the sky and to be whispered to you by her 
palms and mangos, her tamarinds and banyans, her 
bread-fruit trees and bamboos. 

1400 B. c. — Arrangement of the Vedas by Vyasa. 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN INDIA. 85 

1200. — Events of the mighty epic poem called the 
Mahabharata. 

1000. — Events of the epic of Ramayana, by Vahl- 
miki. 

800. —Institutes of Menu. 

500-543. — Gotama Buddha. 

327. — Invasion by Alexander. 

270-240. — Reign of Asoka. 

200 b. c-1000 A. D. — Obscure mediaeval rajahs. 

1219 A. D. — Invasion by Genghis Khan. 

1600. — Organization of the East India Company. 

1605. — Death of Akbar, two years after that of 
Queen Elizabeth of England. 

1640. — Founding of Madras. 

1648. — Date of the completion of the Taj Mahal. 

1666. — Death of Shah Jehan. 

1668. — Bombay begun. 

1689. — Calcutta founded. 

1707. — Death of Aurungzebe. 

1757. — Battle of Plassey. 

1857. — Sepoy mutiny. 

1858. — The Queen becomes the direct ruler of 
India. 

1877. — -Proclamation of her Britannic Majesty as 
Empress of all India. 

Hindus in India, Greeks in India, Mohammedans 
in India, British in India, — these are the chief divi- 
sions in the long story of the Valley of the Ganges, 
— four invasions, three by land and one by sea. 

Xavier (1506 - 1552) arrived in India as a mis- 
sionary in 1540; Schwarz (1726-1788) in 1750; 
Carey (1761-1834) in 1794; Judson (1788-1850) 



86 OEIENT. 

in 1813; Heber (1783-1826) in 1824; Wilson 
(1804-1875) in 1829; Duff (1806-1878) in 1830. 
Lord Macaulay was in Calcutta in 1834. The uni- 
versities of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras were 
founded in 1857. 

If this audience will bear with me, I will read a 
few of the scores of questions which I was constantly 
putting in India, and indicate very briefly the an- 
swers which were given to me there : — 

1. What are the chief religious difficulties of the 
best educated Hindus, and what are those of the 
most ignorant ? 

The chief religious difficulties of the best educated 
Hindus are attachment to caste ; Brahminical pride 
of intellect, and love of subtle disputes, without prac- 
tical results ; the obliteration of the sense of sin by 
mere ceremonialism in religion ; English education 
in universities preserving a neutral attitude toward 
all faiths ; contagion of agnostic, positivist, and pan- 
theistic speculation from the West ; a mistaken con- 
viction that Christianity is losing its influence in the 
educated circles of the Occident. 

The most ignorant Hindus are under the control of 
superstition connected with the hereditary misbelief ; 
they are the dupes and almost the slaves of the 
priestly class ; and here is the power of paganism, 
here is the horror of a false faith. What is this 
man doing ? He lies down in the dust and measures 
his length, rises to his feet, and then measures his 
length again. He is passing over hundreds of miles 
in this way. Why is he going through these austeri- 
ties ? In order to shorten the eight million four hun- 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN INDIA. 87 

dred thousand re-births, and cut off some portion of 
the long line of transmigrations through which, as 
he thinks, all souls not specially favored must go. 
The theory of the average Hindu is that he must be 
re-born, and that, if he has preeminent merit in this 
life, he will be born on a higher scale. Every man 
must go through millions of transmigrations, and emi- 
nent merit here will lessen the number of these, and 
so bring heaven nearer. Austerities of the most hor- 
rible kind you see practiced at Benares, and you ask 
why men endure them, and the answer is: "To 
shorten the eighty-four." The two wheels on which 
the chariot of Hinduism in the ignorant populations 
moves are positive belief in transmigration and in 
caste. Whoever can break these wheels may smite 
Hinduism into fragments. 

2. What are the most frequent types in the relig- 
ious experience of Hindu converts ? that is, by what 
aspects of Christian truth are the most conversions 
made? 

By those aspects which justify its claim to be a Di- 
vine Revelation ; those which awaken a sense of the 
necessity of the deliverance of the soul from the love 
and the guilt of sin ; and those which show that 
Christianity, and it only, can effect this deliverance. 

3. What are the most mischievous forms of im- 
ported unbelief in India ? 

Positivism, pantheism, agnosticism, as represented 
in the various schools of rationalism in Europe. The 
passing fashions of sceptical circles in the West are 
often influential at the Antipodes after they are thor- 
oughly outgrown and discredited in the places of 
their origin. 



88 ORIENT. 

4. Is it advisable, as a general rule, in India, that 
the members of churches organized by missionary- 
labor should be taught and expected to pay one tenth 
of their income for the support of their churches ? 

Missionaries of the American Board generally an- 
swer this question in the affirmative ; but others say, 
Not yet. 

5. What definite plan ought the churches to sup- 
port for the abolition of the abuses of the opium 
trade ? 

All Christian India should petition Parliament for 
the entire abolition of the trade, and for such new 
treaties with China as shall be worthy of Christian 
statesmanship. 

6. What attitude ought the Christian churches to 
take in India as to the evils of caste ? 

It should never be recognized in the church and 
constantly opposed outside the church. 

7. What ought to be the position of the Christian 
churches in India as to the mischief of child-mar- 
riages ? 

They should petition government to abolish them 
by law, as it did suttee, or the burning of widows, in- 
fanticide, and the exposure of the aged on the banks 
of the Ganges, and suicide under the wheels of the 
car of Juggernaut. 

8. What is the attitude of English officials and of 
foreign society in general in India toward the relig- 
ious reformation of the empire? 

Some of the most efficient friends of missionary 
effort have been found among the great civilians of 
India ; as, for, example, Lord Lawrence and Sir 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN INDIA. 89 

William Bentinck. The Christian fame of a Gen- 
eral Haveloek has become one of the treasures of the 
whole world. It is to be confessed, however, that 
large parts of fashionable society in governmental 
circles in India are of too coarse a spiritual fibre to 
relish aggressive Christian work, or to appreciate the 
missionary movement which is preparing for India 
and all Asia a new civilization. It used to be the 
proverb that Indian officials sent from England leave 
their Christianity at the Cape of Good Hope on the 
voyage out, and take it up again there on the voy- 
age home. Nothing as cynical as this would now be 
true. 

9. What reforms do the educated classes of India 
wish to effect in its political condition ? 

They ask for commissions of inquiry into the work- 
ing of the British government ; they demand freedom 
of the press ; they aspire to the use of representative 
institutions for all India. As definite steps toward 
the last of these changes, they propose the extension 
of the elective principle to all first class municipali- 
ties of British India; the concession to the munici- 
pal boards of the three Presidency towns and a few 
other great Indian cities of the right to elect mem- 
bers of the legislative councils ; the extension of the 
scope of these councils so as to include questions 
of finance. (See Dr. W. W. Hunter's Lecture? on 
" England's Work in India," p. 135.) 

10. What do progressive and cultivated Hindus 
think is likely to be the future of British power in 
India ? 

Peaceful supremacy for perhaps an hundred years 



90 ORIENT. 

to come if these reforms are slowly granted and due 
wisdom is exercised ; otherwise, extinction. 

11. Of what use will an exhaustive study of Ori- 
ental false religions, and especially of the sacred 
books of the Brahmins and the Buddhists, be in the 
illustration and defense of Christianity ? 

As Max Miiller has said, in his introduction to his 
edition of the " Sacred Books of the East," he who 
seriously puts forward any of these as a rival of the 
Christian Scriptures lacks scholarship. Nevertheless, 
the best ethical maxims and the noblest imaginative 
passages of Oriental pagan sacred books have a value 
of substance, though not of form, perhaps nearly 
equal to that of the best ethical and poetical parts of 
Greek literature. Nothing in history or philosophy, 
however, in Asiatic pagan books, equals what has 
been transmitted to us on these topics by the Greeks. 
The foremost theists of India have given up wholly 
the doctrine of the inspiration of the Vedas. Keshub 
Chunder Sen professes solemnly that it is only in the 
Bible that he and his followers find the satisfaction 
of their deepest spiritual wants. They know well 
what the light of Asia is, and affirm that it is twi- 
light. In a thorough study of comparative religion, 
Christianity has nothing to fear and much to gain. 

12. What has been the rate of progress of Chris- 
tianity in India, and what is its present numerical 
strength in all India and Ceylon ? 

In the last ten years not only has the ratio of in- 
crease of former decades been kept up, but a great 
advance has been made upon it, especially in India, 
where the growth has risen to 100 per cent. It was 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN INDIA. 91 

my fortune to exhibit often to Hindu audiences ta- 
bles of statistics like these in support of the proposi- 
tion that Christianity has come to India to stay : 

Native Christians 

1851. 1861. 1871. 1881. 

India 91,092 138,731 224,258 417,372 

Burmah No returns. 59,366 62,729 75,510 

Ceylon 11,859 15,273 31,376 35,708 

Total ...... 102,951 213,370 318,363 528,590 

Communicants. 

India 14,661 24,976 52,816 113,325 

Burmah No returns. 18,439 20,514 24,929 

Ceylon 2,645 3,859 5,164 6,843 

Total 17,308 47,274 78,494 145,097 

In the first of these decades the ratio of increase 
was fifty-three per cent.; in the second, sixty-one per 
cent.; in the last, eighty-six per cent. In Ceylon the 
percentage of increase in the past ten years is sev- 
enty, while in India it is one hundred. None of the 
European or American churches can exhibit such an 
increase. There is every reason to believe that this 
rate of increase will be exceeded in the next ten 
years. (See the New York " Independent " for Feb- 
ruary 1, 1883, p. 8.) It may be possible, as the 
" Indian Witness " suggests, that there are many per- 
sons now living who will see from ten to fifteen mil- 
lion Protestant Christians in India before they obtain 
release from toil in this earthly vineyard. The larg- 
est aggregate increase of native Christians was in Ma- 
dras, where, in place of 160,955 Christians ten years 
ago, there are now 299,742. The distribution among 



92 ORIENT. 

the provinces and the rate of increase is shown by 
the following table : — 

Madras 299,742 86 per cent 

Bengal 83,583 67 " 

Burniah 75,510 27 " 

Ceylon 35,508 70 " 

Bombay 11,691 180 " 

N. W. Provinces 10,300 64 " 

Central India 4,885 92 " 

Punjab 4,672 155 " 

Oudh 1,329 111 " 

The Calcutta Missionary Conference, a most re- 
markable gathering, containing representives from all 
the provinces between the Himalayas and the sea, 
publishes these statistics, and has but just risen from 
its knees on the banks of the Hooghly, where it has 
been offering devout thanks to Almighty God for the 
progress of Christianity in India at a speed never 
equaled anywhere on earth except in the time of the 
apostles. No part of the world can show such a rate 
of increase of the number of native Christians as 
India can during the last decade. A mighty ava- 
lanche is already poised for falling. 



III. 



KESHUB CHUNDER SEN AND HINDU 
THEISM. 

WITH A PRELUDE ON 

LIMITED MUNICIPAL SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN. 

THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-NINTH LECTURE IN THE 

BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN 

TREMONT TEMPLE, MARCH 5, 1883. 



" There ought to be no pariahs in a full grown and civilized nation ; 
no persons disqualified except through their own default. Difference 
of sex is as entirely irrelevant to political rights as difference in height 
or in the color of the hair." — John Stuart Mill. 

" Woman represents and largely is the conscience and the heart of 
Christendom. More than man she beat down slavery in this country. 
More than men she is to mould the future of the world." — R. S. 
Storks. 



" A pagan, kissing, for a step of Pan, 
The wild-goat's hoof-print on the loamy down, 
Exceeds our modern thinker who turns back 
The strata — granite, limestone, coal, and clay, 
Concluding coldly with, ' Here 's law ! Where 's God 1 



> >> 
Mrs. Browning. 



: God sends his teachers unto every age, 
To every clime, and every race of men, 
With revelations fitted to their growth 
And shape of mind, nor gives the realm of Truth 
Into the selfish rule of one sole race : 
Therefore each form of worship that hath swayed 
The life of man, and given it to grasp 
The master-key of knowledge, reverence, 
Infolds some germs of goodness and of right." 

Lowell. 



PRELUDE III. 

LIMITED MUNICIPAL SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN. 

Why should limited municipal suffrage be granted 
to women ? By limited municipal suffrage is meant 
the right of voting limited to city elections and to 
such women as can read and write and pay a volun- 
tary tax for the privilege of exercising the franchise, 
and are residents of the cities in which they vote, and 
in other respects have the qualifications required of 
male voters. 

1. More than a fifth of the population of the 
United States now lives in cities. The misgovern- 
ment, illiteracy, intemperance, and immorality of the 
larger cities are among the hugest practical evils of 
our civilization. Whatever will tend to purify great 
cities effectively will be an incalculably important 
blessing to the world at large, for the tendency of 
population to mass itself in cities and the dispropor- 
tionate growth of crime in cities are phenomena of 
all advanced modern nations. The success of gov- 
ernments of the people, for the people, and by the 
people is inseparably bound up with the success of 
good government in cities. 

2. Self-support is more difficult for women than 
for men, and so women have selfish reasons which 
men have not for attachment to the house, and 



96 ORIENT. 

hence, if they have the power, may be expected to 
defend the interests of home more carefully than men 
have done. 

It is more difficult for a woman to maintain her- 
self alone than for a man to do so, because the most 
gainful occupations are not open to her, and because 
she is physically unfitted for the severest physical 
and mental labor ; and because natural laws, with a 
sternness unknown in the case of man, require of 
woman periodic rest ; and because most women, even 
if they start an independent business, do not expect 
to maintain it, but to merge it, after marriage, with 
that of their husbands. In view of the greater diffi- 
culty of their self-support, women are more depen- 
dent than men on good laws for their protection, and 
hence may be expected to be more solicitious than 
men to purify legislation so far as it touches the 
home, which is the very centre and palladium of 
free society and especially of the society of cities. 

3. Women, as a class, illiterates excepted, are 
more free from intemperance and immorality than 
men, and hence may be expected to cast a purer 
vote for the reform of cities. 

The caution of this proposition is, I hope, not a 
discourtesy to the sex whose interest I am endeavor- 
ing to defend. Omitting illiterates, chiefly found — 
among women — in our recently immigrated popula- 
tion, the very froth of society is almost the only place 
in which intemperance can be found in this country 
among females. I am not speaking of England, nor 
of the Continent ; but of the United States. In the 
middle class, if I may use such a phrase here, and in 



LIMITED MUNICIPAL SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN. 97 

the upper part of what we call the poorer class and 
in the lower part of the wealthier class, women in the 
United States are, as a rule, not only temperate, but 
abstinent. It is a most amazing thing to find in- 
temperance among women in any of these circles. 
What we really ought to call the summit of Ameri- 
can society is to be found in the best educated and 
the most efficiently religious, and not in the wealthier 
classes. 

A few years since, thank God, one of the queens 
of American society, at the White House, at Wash- 
ington, turned the wine-glass upside down. [Ap- 
plause.] That precedent has been set and will al- 
ways remain a fact in American history, and it in- 
dicates what the real summit of society in America 
thinks of intemperance. 

4. Women, as more dependent on home than men, 
suffer more from the vices of great cities, and hence 
may be expected to do more for the reform of cities 
than men have done. 

5. By endowment of Heaven, women are more at- 
tached to children in their tenderest years than men 
are, and care more in most cases for the interests of 
fathers, sons, brothers, and husbands than these male 
classes do for themselves in matters of morals [ap- 
plause], and so may be expected to purify the vote 
of cities in the interest of its households. 

6. Municipal suffrage for tax-paying women has 
worked well for many years in England. 

Jacob Bright says he believes England will lead 
America in the matter of giving municipal suffrage 
to tax-paying ladies ; and, indeed, Great Britain does 

7 



98 ORIENT. 

lead the United States at this moment in the matter, 
and Scotland is likely soon to lead us unless reform 
with us progresses much more rapidly than it has 
done of late. 

7. A general right of suffrage for women has 
worked well for fourteen years in Wyoming, and the 
success of the larger privilege of voting justifies a 
hope that a narrower measure would eventuate well. 

You doubt the success of female suffrage in Wyo- 
ming Territory. I claim no authority on this mat- 
ter ; but it has been my fortune to visit Wyoming 
three times, and to meet civilians, preachers, and 
teachers there, and to study carefully the press of 
the territory, and my conviction is that it can be 
established, by overwhelming evidence, that woman 
suffrage in Wyoming, on the whole, is a success. 
[Applause.] As I am not a woman suffragist, I 
am not led by the necessities of a theory to interpret 
the experience of Wyoming in a particular way. I 
hold in my hand a tract, recently issued, a republica- 
tion of a somewhat elaborate leading article in the 
Laramie " Sentinel " of Feb. 3, 1883, and in it I find 
that the three governors of Wyoming, Campbell, 
Thayer, and Hoyt, all the governors that the terri- 
tory has had since woman suffrage became its law, 
in 1869, have uniformly indorsed and spoken in the 
highest terms of its practical workings in all their 
messages and official documents. No one can be 
found to oppose this law who wants to see good gov- 
ernment in the territory. The women prize and ex- 
ercise their political rights as highly and generally as 
the men. There is a less percentage of women who 



LIMITED MUNICIPAL SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN. 99 

stay away from the polls than of men. It is no un- 
common thing for wives and husbands to differ in 
their political opinions ; but this, as a rule, produces 
no ill social effect. It is treated as a circumstance 
to be looked on with good-humor. " Our elections," 
this authority affirms, " were formerly an improved 
and revised edition of a Donnybrook Fair. Under 
the refining influence of woman's presence, they are 
now as civil, quiet, and orderly as are our churches or 
any other social gathering." 

How do ladies vote in Wyoming ? It is perfectly 
proper for a lady to walk to the polls, with a gentle- 
man as attendant, or even alone. In most cases ladies 
get into their carriages, with their husbands or their 
sons, and drive to a sort of bay-window, and, without 
stepping out of their carriages, drop their votes into 
a box at that projection of the office where votes are 
counted. A most dignified procedure. Poor women 
may, of course, not go to the polls in carriages ; but, 
with their husbands and sons with them, and under 
guard of the police, such is American honor that 
no indignity need be feared for them, even in the 
great cities. You think that women cannot vote 
without mixing with the roughs at the polls. It is 
astounding how beclouded, benighted, belated, and 
barbaric some of the objections to woman suffrage 
are, and especially on this very point. [Applause 
and laughter.] 

This article closes by saying : " We speak that 
which we know, and, as an evidence of good faith, 
we write and publish this here at home, where all 
the facts are known, and where, if we misstated or 



100 OKIENT. 

misrepresented the matter, it would be at our own 
peril." For ten years such documents as these have 
been published in Wyoming. I have taken pains to 
gather everything I could find opposed to this evi- 
dence. Very kind friends have sent me official pub- 
lications again and again from Wyoming ; civilians, 
as well as preachers. The truth is that the prepon- 
derating opinion goes to show that Wyoming is satis- 
fied that woman suffrage is, on the whole, beneficial 
to her ; and she would not go back, if she could, to 
the old arrangements. [Applause.] 

8. Women are less connected than men with par- 
tisan political intrigue, corrupt rings, and the temp- 
tations of business ; and hence may be expected to 
give a vote more nearly according than man's with 
the merits of the case in each election. 

9. Voting would increase the intelligence of women, 
and be a powerful incitement to female education. 

10. It would enable women to protect their own 
industrial, social, moral, and educational rights. 

Horace Greeley used to contend that seduction 
should be punished by death. In how many cities 
of this country is it punished with severity or to the 
extent of the law ? Let women vote, even in the 
limited way that I am proposing ; let them have a 
voice in the defense of their own rights [applause], 
and the time will come when man will be treated as 
sternly for immorality as woman is to-day [applause], 
and may God hasten that hour. [Loud applause.] 

Velvet life wants no vote. Dulcet drones, dear, 
respectable people in effortless, luxurious circles, pe- 
tition even a Massachusetts legislature against having 



LIMITED MUNICIPAL SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN. 101 

political responsibilities thrust upon them. [Laugh- 
ter.] The authoress of a battle-hymn of the repub- 
lic, she who has heard the cry of humanity for the 
alleviation of its terrible distresses, may well look 
upon these very respectable drags on the wheels of 
progress with scorn. [Applause.] An eagle does 
not occupy his time in catching flies. [Laughter 
and applause.] 

11. Thousands of women of the best social posi- 
tion petition for the right of limited municipal suf- 
frage, and only a few hundreds have petitioned 
against it. 

12. Limited municipal suffrage for women would 
be an experiment by which the merits of woman's 
suffrage could be gradually ascertained by experi- 
ence, without danger to the constitution of society, 
for state and national power would yet be exclu- 
sively in the hands of men, and if this experiment 
should not work well it could be discontinued. 

13. Excluding all illiterate votes, elections that 
turn on large moral issues like license or no license, 
prohibition or its opposite, or on education in cities, 
would not be beyond the comprehension of the mass 
of female votes, as instructed and led by the best 
culture in their own class and by public discussion 
at large, and so would not greatly increase the danger 
from ignorant voters. 

14. Woman's interests in the great moral issues at 
stake in city government are so immense that gradu- 
ally all women of conscience possessing the right of 
suffrage would be expected to use it, and so a limited 
municipal suffrage would not greatly increase the 
evils of absenteeism at the polls. 



102 OKIENT. 

15. For nearly half a century the cause of a lim- 
ited female suffrage has been winning more and more 
golden opinions, not only among philanthropists and 
reformers, but among legislators. We have had, 
for instance, six grave governors, and one governor 
not very grave, in this Commonwealth, who have 
recommended enlarged woman suffrage. The indus- 
trial, educational, and social rights of women have 
been advanced immensely in the last generation, and 
experience has justified these changes. Who wants 
to go back to the position in which we were a gener- 
ation since in regard to the industrial, educational, 
and general legal rights of women ? 

16. My supreme argument, however, is my last. 
The whiskey rings and other corrupt classes, who are 
chiefly responsible for the misgovernment of great 
cities, fear nothing so much as limited municipal suf- 
frage for women, and this terror of the enemies of 
civilization points out the most effective weapon that 
can be used against them. [Applause.] 

You think that I have forgotten three things : 
first, the dangers of an ignorant vote ; secondly, the 
dangers of absenteeism at the polls; and thirdly, 
the dangers of voting under the dictation of priests 
and political rings. As these propositions show, I 
have forgotten none of these things. I begin by ex- 
cluding the illiterate vote. I begin by excluding all 
women who are not willing to pay a tax for the right 
of suffrage. I begin by putting into the very defini- 
tion of limited municipal suffrage such qualifications 
that the class who are most open to the misleading 
influences of priests and political rings are shut out. 



LIMITED MUNICIPAL SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN. 103 

I would not vote for municipal suffrage for women in 
New York city at this moment without the reading 
test. I would not vote for it in Chicago, or St. 
Louis, or San Francisco, or New Orleans. So far 
from being a fanatic on this subject am I that I re- 
gret exceedingly the absence of the reading test for 
men in New York, and would vote at a moment's 
notice for the restoration of it to the place it once 
held in my native commonwealth. I am in favor of 
compulsory voting. I want Civil Service Reform 
carried in its very best shape, and applied not only to 
national, but to state and municipal, affairs. I am 
by no means of opinion that limited municipal suf- 
frage, such as I now defend, will bring the millen- 
nium, or that it will be without great disappointments 
in many ways ; but my feeling is very strong that 
we are justified by experience and by good sense, 
amounting to much more than a theory, in trying 
such an experiment as the General Court of Massa- 
chusetts and many legislatures of other states are 
now asked to undertake, by petitions annually in- 
creasing in number and urgency. Even states as 
conservative as New Hampshire and Massachusetts 
have already given to woman in cities an educational 
vote. But a temperance vote is even more clearly 
her right in natural justice than an educational. The 
cause is rising to a high tide of urgency, under the 
impulse of a desire for protection from both intem- 
perance and illiteracy. 

This is a cause in which the whole world is inter- 
ested. In speaking of it here, I have in mind Mel- 
bourne, Sydney, Calcutta, Bombay, Paris, and Lon- 



104 ORIENT. 

don, and the multitude of municipalities which are 
drifting into the same dangers which threaten our 
great cities. The right management of great towns 
will be an absorbing question as suffrage broadens in 
the twentieth century. Let America remember that 
on this topic her responsibilities are world-wide. In 
yiew of the growth of representative institutions in 
our day, in view of the massing of men in cities, in 
view of the general elevation of woman's condition in 
Asia, in view of her enlarging industrial and educa- 
tional and legal rights in Europe and America, who 
dares predict that a century hence there will not be 
something in our immensely misgoverned cities like 
limited municipal suffrage for women ? I believe 
that this reform is coming, and that it will come to 
stay. God grant that our fashionable society may 
have the wisdom to ride in his chariot, and not be 
dragged behind its wheels ! [Applause.] 



LECTURE III. 

KESHUB CHUNDEB SEN AND HINDU THEISM. 

India has originated two of the most widely spread 
religions of the globe — Hinduism and Buddhism. 
Is it now likely to originate another, Eclectic Theism, 
including all those portions of Christian and non- 
Christian faiths which agree ? This is the question 
naturally raised by the career of the eminent Hindu 
reformer, once leader of the theistic organization 
called the Brahmo Somaj, and now of its most pro- 
gressive portion called the New Dispensation, the 
eloquent Babu Keshub Chunder Sen, of Calcutta. 

In the line of religious endeavor Keshub Chunder 
Sen is a lineal successor of Ram Mohun Roy, whose 
studies of Christianity began at about the time when 
the great Scottish missionary Duff was commencing 
his marvelous career at the mouth of the Ganges. 

Ram Mohun Roy was born of Brahmin parentage 
at Bordwan, Northern India, in 1774, and died at Bris- 
tol, while on a visit to England, in 1833. From early 
studies under Mohammedan teachers he imbibed a 
hatred of idolatry. He highly reverenced the Chris- 
tian Scriptures, and at last came to regard them as 
ultimate authority concerning religious truth, but he 
never became a member of any Christian organiza- 
tion. It may be claimed with justice that in theory 



106 ORIENT. 

he was a vacillating adherent of a shallow but con- 
servative form of Unitarianism. His principle was 
to preach a reformed Hinduism to Hindus and a re- 
formed Christianity to Christians. He founded in 
Calcutta a Vedantic institution, to revive the ancient 
monotheism of India. His reform had in it both a 
Christian and a Vedantic element, and these, as in- 
herited by his successors, have struggled for suprem- 
acy over each other in the movement he began. The 
organization he formed grew into something which 
was called a theistic church, with a house of wor- 
ship, congregation, membership, covenant, and public 
declaration of faith. 

Extraordinary devotional exercises became a part 
of the discipline of the Brahmos, under the devout 
leadership of Debendra Nath Tagore, a reformer who 
followed Ram Mohun Roy as chief guide of the the- 
istic movement. The infallibility of the Vedas was 
formally given up, and theism proclaimed by Ram 
Mohun Roy's successors, about the year 1850. The 
Brahmo Somaj (God Society) then addressed itself 
to the formation of a definite national creed. This 
included only what is known in the theological schools 
of the West as natural religion. Brahmo marriages 
and intermarriages, although prohibited by the Hindu 
rules of caste, began from the year 1861. This stage 
of progress led to a rupture between the older and 
younger party of Brahmos and the establishment of 
the Brahmo Somaj of India, in 1860. 

The leader of the younger party of Brahmos was 
Keshub Chunder Sen. Under his incitement, rad- 
ical social changes were advocated. An Indian Re- 



KESHUB CHUNDER SEN AND HINDU THEISM. 107 

form Association was established in 1870 ; an active 
missionary organization was constituted ; preachers 
began to travel from one part of the country to the 
other ; the doctrines of love for God and communion 
with God (Bhakti and Yoga) began to be explained 
with new intensity ; sacraments and ceremonies were 
instituted ; and, at last, the New Dispensation, as 
the highest development of the Brahmo Somaj, was 
proclaimed, in 1880, under the spiritual and intellec- 
tual leadership of Keshub Chunder Sen. 

Ram Comul Sen, the grandfather of Keshub Chun- 
der Sen, was a remarkable man. He was born in 
1783 and died in 1844. The second son of a poor 
man who lived in a village just opposite to the town 
of Hooghly, he began life at nineteen years of age as 
a compositor, and up to his thirty-sixth year had at- 
tained no higher position than that of clerk in the 
Asiatic Society. The distinguished Orientalist, Dr. 
H. H. Wilson, recognized his talents and moral worth, 
and so influenced him that in a few years he became 
the native head of the Calcutta Mint and Bank of 
Bengal. He extended his education as he rose in 
social position, made himself a very fair Sanscrit 
scholar, spoke and wrote English remarkably well, 
and was the author of a copious and accurate Ben- 
gali and English Dictionary. There was no pub- 
lic and important movement of his time in which he 
was not an active worker. In a score of learned so- 
cieties and local committees in Calcutta he was the 
guiding spirit. He was the chief leader of the Hindu 
community in that city, and an adviser of the gov- 
ernment of Lord William Bentinck. He was the 



108 ORIENT. 

founder of a large and very influential family in Cal- 
cutta. A strict vegetarian, he cooked his own meals 
at the end of the day's hard work. A rigid and most 
devout Vaishnavite, he was the author of a collection 
of prayers exhibiting profound religious instincts. 
(" Theistic Quarterly Review," January, 1881, p. 
106.) 

Keshub Chunder Sen was born November 18, 
1838. He was educated at the Hindu College in 
Calcutta. In college, although at first fond of mathe- 
matics, he devoted himself almost exclusively to Eng- 
lish literature and mental and moral philosophy. He 
passed four years in collegiate study, but is not a 
graduate of the final examinations of Calcutta Uni- 
versity, which was established only two years before 
his quadrennial terminated. He became an active 
member of the Brahmo Somaj about 1859. His de- 
vout character and his eloquence at once made him 
a leader. He visited England in 1870, and was re- 
ceived with distinguished honor, especially by the 
Unitarians, and was introduced to the Queen. Two 
volumes of his addresses in England have been pub- 
lished at Calcutta, and have lately been followed by 
a third volume, containing English lectures of his in 
India. Besides editing a weekly religious newspaper 
and directing the instruction of theological students 
and various religious assistants, he preaches often to 
his people in a tabernacle in Calcutta, and once a 
year delivers, in the great Town Hall there, to an im- 
mense assembly, an elaborate oration in English on 
some point of faith or practice connected with the 
religious movement he represents and which he hopes 
to make national in its influence. 



KESHUB CHUNDEK SEN AND HINDU THEISM. 109 

Keshub Chunder Sen is now forty-five years old, 
and is by far the most interesting religious figure 
lately produced by the millions of Hindustan. Many 
regard hini as nearly or quite a Christian, and others 
as simply a fanatic and rhapsodical dreamer, anxious 
to immortalize himself. Others think he is a com- 
bination of these two characters. My own opinion 
concerning him was made up very slowly. I ob- 
tained, when I first went to Calcutta, everything he 
had published, and in a very few days was honored 
by interviews with some of his leading apostles, as 
they are called, and was invited to his house. I had 
long interviews with him, which I, of course, have no 
right to describe in public in detail. Suffice it to say 
that I must have been in Keshub Chunder Sen's com- 
pany, at different times, fifteen or twenty crowded 
hours. On invitation, I made an expedition with 
him and his pupils up the river Hooghly, and he 
called on me at my place of residence in Calcutta ; 
and I was prepared, with written questions in most 
cases, to examine his characteristic views, so that I 
feel, after a study of all he has published and after 
the very best opportunities to meet him in private, 
that I ought to understand what he aims at. 

Let me say, once for all, that I regard it as indis- 
putable that he is an honest man. He seems to me 
not only an honest, but a profoundly devout man, of 
extraordinary natural equipment in the intuitive re- 
ligious faculties. His enemies say he is not a pro- 
found man, and some of them call him even a shallow 
man. Most of them affirm that he is a very politic 
man, and that he is ambitious to be at the head of a 



110 OKIENT. 

new religious movement. I will not affirm that he is 
a Bacon, or a Leibnitz, or a Kant. He is a man of 
the Emerson type, powerful in the intuitive, rather 
than in the analytical, faculties. It was Mr. Burlin- 
game, I believe, who said that in Asia there are at 
least ten thousand Emersons. The characteristic 
type of mind in India is the intuitive, and not the 
philosophical. Mr. Sen speaks through his lofty moral 
feelings. He sees religious truths through his con- 
science, rather than through mere reason. All his 
teaching must be understood from the point of view 
of his idiosyncrasies, or it will be misunderstood from 
the outset. He is not an Occidental; he is a thor- 
ough Oriental, and feels the touch of God within 
him, as the Oriental always has done at his best. 
He listens to the Inner Voice with the devoutness of 
one of the best of the Quaker mystics. He instinc- 
tively believes in Providence. He is perpetually in- 
culcating the duty and the blessedness of prayer and 
of self-surrender to all the loftiest impulses of con- 
science, which, as he teaches, are really supernatural 
touches of God upon the spirit of man. 

Keshub Chunder Sen holds a certain doctrine of 
inspiration which has often startled his British and 
American readers. He believes that, at certain mo- 
ments, he is himself inspired ; but after cross - ex- 
amining him again and again on this theme, I am 
convinced that by his inspiration he means very little 
more than we mean by illumination of the Holy 
Spirit ; or, certainly, not more than the Quaker 
mystics have meant by the Inner Light and the In- 
terior Voice. According to the ritual lately sug- 



KESHUB CHUNDER SEN AND HINDU THEISM. Ill 

gested by Keshub Chunder Sen for the examination 
of candidates for the holy order of missionaries in 
his theistic organization, the candidate is asked : 
"Is this order thine own choice or art thou called 
to it?" The candidate answers: "Called." "By 
whom ? " asks the minister. " By the Holy Spirit." 
" How dost thou know it ? " The reply is significant : 
" My best impulses and aspirations tend in this direc- 
tion. My ideas, tastes, and capacities are all adapted 
to it. My whole life has naturally grown into it." 
In Mr. Sen's divinity school it is taught that what 
genius is in the intellectual world inspiration is in 
the religious. It is an occasional divine gift, and 
one that is sometimes vouchsafed even in our day. 
When I put to Mr. P. C. Mozumdar, one of the very 
ablest of Mr. Sen's coadjutors, the question : " How 
does Mr. Sen distinguish with certainty and precision 
the subjective from the objective in his religious ex- 
periences ; that is, how does he make sure that any 
impression which he calls inspiration is not from his 
own faculties, but really from God himself ? " the 
only answer was : " That is one of the secrets of re- 
ligious genius." 

Precisely here is the weakest and most dangerous, 
and yet to the average Hindu mind the most fasci- 
nating, part of Keshub Chunder Sen's claims and in- 
culcations. Without pretending to offer any objec- 
tive proof of the reality of his inspiration, he does 
teach unqualifiedly the very startling doctrine that 
some of the communications which come to him in his 
highest moments of devotion are infallible. He grants, 
however, that the reality of his inspiration must be 



112 ORIENT. 

tested by the accord of his teachings with those of 
every inspired authority in religion. It is reassuring 
to find that he holds, in so many words, that the 
spirit of the prophets must be subject to the prophets. 
He regards the Christian Scriptures as incomparably 
the most important sacred books of the world. Fa- 
miliar with all the sacred books of Asia, he and his 
followers find only in the Bible that which satisfies 
their deepest spiritual wants. All their study of com- 
parative religions brings them back with unabated 
hunger and enthusiasm to the study of the Christian 
Scriptures. 

Mr. Sen would not trust any inspiration of his own 
that should seem to be opposed to fundamental bib- 
lical truth. Nevertheless, he believes that supplemen- 
tary truth may be discovered through prayer, and 
that it has been revealed to him that a new dispensa- 
tion of the Holy Spirit is to come into the world ; and 
that his church, which is named the Church of the 
New Dispensation, is to lead this movement ; and 
that it is to unify all the religions of the earth, — 
Christian, Mohammedan, and Pagan, — so far as they 
agree with the inmost voice of conscience. This is 
what he calls revealed theism, as distinguished from 
rationalistic theism, or mere cold deism, which he 
abhors. 

He is far more than a deist. He calls Martineau 
and Parker cold. He cannot tolerate the radical and 
rationalistic forms of Unitarianism, although it has 
treated him with the utmost courtesy. There was a 
time when it was supposed that Mr. Sen would be 
the leader of a reform of religion in India and make 



KESHUB CHUNDER SEN AND HINDU THEISM. 113 

his new creed substantially Unitarian ; but I asked 
Mr. Sen, point-blank : " What do you think of Uni- 
tarianism ? " His answer was : " It is an icicle. I 
take pains to call myself not a Unitarian but a Uni- 
trinitarian." What does he mean by that phrase ? 
He holds a certain doctrine of the Trinity. Scholars 
in theology would not regard it as altogether a 
sound one. He delivered in the Town Hall in Cal- 
cutta, just before I visited that city, a really re- 
markable address on " That Marvelous Mystery of 
the Trinity." But when I came to examine it I 
found that it would not bear a theological analysis. 
It was not Unitarianism, however. In order to probe 
his conviction, I put to him this question, in pres- 
ence of his theological pupils : " Do you believe 
in the preexistence of Christ ? " " Yes, as a divine 
attribute," was the answer, which is not orthodoxy. 
In his lecture on the Trinity, Mr. Sen goes so far as 
to say : " Even the coeternity of the Son with the 
Father, pure theism has fearlessly upheld and pro- 
claimed." As explained by Babu Mozumdar, Mr. 
Sen's chief disciple, this language means only that 
Christ existed from eternity in the thought of God as 
a part of the diyine plan for the future good of man- 
kind. " The future Christ, as God meant to create him, 
was the seed of that dispensation yet undeveloped. 
In that stage, Christ certainly had no personality." 
("Theistic Quarterly Review," July, 1879, p. 4.) 

As his very loose and incorrect use of theological 
terms shows, Mr. Sen has not had a thorough theo- 
logical education. I was amazed to find that he had 
never read Canon Liddon's Lectures on the Divinity 



114 ORIENT. 

of our Lord, and I gave him a copy of the book. He 
does not much believe in studying books of theology. 
He is, as I think, unjustly charged with neglecting 
study ; but he does not regard it as the chief means of 
arriving at a knowledge of religious truth. In his lec- 
ture on the question : " Am I an Inspired Prophet ? " 
he said : " I am not a wise man. How can he 
who scarcely reads two books in three hundred and 
sixty-five days be reckoned a wise or a learned man ? 
Yet am I studious. I study not the books of the 
West nor the books of the East, but the vast volume 
of human nature." His principle is to lean little on 
the intellect, but heavily on the conscience and the 
whole moral nature as a guide in religion. He is, 
however, far from being unbalanced in the extreme 
sense of the mystic who believes only in the moral 
feelings. 

He has sound, rounded sense, or he could not be 
the orator he is. He is an orator born, not made. He 
has a splendid physique, excellent quality of organi- 
zation, capacity of sudden heat and of tremendous im- 
petuosity, and lightning-like swiftness of thought and 
expression, combined with a most iron self-control. 
You cannot throw him off his balance before any 
audience, with a manuscript or without one. He is 
unquestionably the most eloquent Asiatic I ever heard. 
He speaks English as perfectly as any man in this 
assembly ; he seems to have learned it from the pages 
of Addison or Macaulay, and not from colloquial 
usage. His English is extremely pure, and is pro- 
nounced without the slightest foreign accent. Six 
feet in height, with bronze complexion and quite reg- 



KESHUB CHUNDER SEN AND HINDU THEISM. 115 

ular features, he is a commanding figure, in his 
Asiatic costume, whether seen in public or in private. 
As you may see from his portrait, which I hold in my 
hand, he has the oratorical temperament ; his lips, 
cheeks, forehead, eyes, and whole form proclaim this. 
But he is not a philosopher, I am sorry to say ; and 
so he does sometimes drop into rhapsody, and his 
moral feelings carry him away. He seems to lack 
balance occasionally, and so draws down upon himself 
severe criticism at times. In spite of all this, how- 
ever, I think him one of the most devout Asiatics I 
have seen, and undoubtedly a man of intellectual as 
well as of religious genius, but chiefly strong in the 
latter. He usually fascinates every one who comes 
near him, and he has a strange ascendency over his 
immediate followers, several of whom are men of 
high intellectual endowments and finished education. 
In Keshub Chunder Sen's house «what happens ? 
How does he instruct his theological students? He 
has a theological school, quite well patronized, and I 
have here on the table several of the examination- 
papers used in it. They include many Christian 
books, and the questions are very keen on the topics 
of Providence and prayer and inspiration. In his 
own dwelling, the Lily Cottage, on Circular Road, 
in Calcutta, — a mansion with deep verandas on both 
lower and upper stories, and standing in large, open 
grounds, among graceful and stately palms, — he has 
what he calls a sanctuary. I must introduce you to 
this holy of holies of Mr. Sen's home, if you are to 
understand this theistic reformer of India. He 
showed the room to me with a manner of intense 



116 ORIENT. 

reverence for it, and I willingly regarded it as a sa- 
cred place, for here I saw revealed the very heart of 
natural religion, as understood by a man of high re- 
ligious genius, outside the pale of Christianity. 

Mr. Sen meets his theological pupils and his chief 
religious associates in his sanctuary nearly every 
day except Sunday, when he is usually engaged in 
preaching at his tabernacle. The room is fitted up 
in Asiatic style. He has a little platform, not more 
than three or four inches high, on which he is seated 
in the Asiatic manner. There are mats scattered 
about the floor for the seats of pupils and apostles. 
Musical instruments stand in the different corners, 
— not elaborate instruments, but of the simple an- 
cient Hindu patterns, sometimes one-stringed lyres, 
such as the Rishis, or Hindu saints and recluses, 
were accustomed to use in their meditations in the 
solitudes of the Himalayas. After music, Mr. Sen, 
seated on this platform, enters into a very long 
prayer. His pupils and followers devoutly believe 
that in the best parts of his prayer he is inspired. 
They note carefully not merely his language, but his 
intonations. When the divine afflatus seems to come 
to him in his devotions, they feel that they are com- 
muning, through him, with the Holy Spirit. They 
actually believe this, and are correspondingly solem- 
nized. They hold in reverence, however, not the or- 
gan, but the divine influence that plays through it. 

You might easily be misled by the manner of some 
of Keshub Chunder Sen's students toward him. I 
have been seated in his presence when one of his fore- 
most followers came into the room, and immediately 



KESHUB CHUNDER SEN AND HINDU THEISM. 117 

bowed down and kissed Mr. Sen's feet. Mr. Sen has 
been accused over and over again of allowing per- 
sonal homage ; but kissing of the feet is a courtesy 
some missionaries have experienced. The distin- 
guished American missionary, Dr. Thoburn, of Cal- 
cutta, said to me that he frequently had been obliged 
to treat a little sternly Asiatics who had offered to 
kiss his feet with an appearance of personal homage. 
It is not, in Asia, understood that you regard a man 
as divine because you kiss his feet, for that is one of 
the forms of exhibiting extreme reverence. I have 
seen Mr. Sen's feet kissed, and I have seen him 
anathematized in English papers for allowing per- 
sonal homage. It must be admitted that it is a 
dangerous freedom for him to permit this form of 
salutation outside of unmixed Hindu circles, where 
the ceremony is understood. 

After more music, perhaps Mr. Sen offers another 
long prayer, or some other teacher of peculiarly 
devout temperament offers another, or several do 
this. It is believed when these prayers agree, all 
the apostles seeming to be moved in the same way, 
that an infallible truth is revealed. They insist 
on that word "infallible." They affirm that inspi- 
ration is a gift of our day, and that when two or 
three are met together, as Christians say, or when 
a worshiping circle is formed in the Hindu fash- 
ion, and prayers are found to agree in the im- 
pulses they leave upon genuinely devout hearts, it 
must be believed that God is in those impulses. 
There is a poet and musician of high rank usually 
present at these devotions. Filled with the spirit of 



118 ORIENT. 

the religious exercises, which continue sometimes 
four or five hours, and this several days in the week, 
this poet comes forward at the close of the prayers 
and, striking his harp, extemporizes a hymn. His 
rapt words are most carefully taken down by a ste- 
nographer ; the poet is allowed to correct the record ; 
and thus have come into the possession of the Church 
of the New Dispensation, so called, more than a thou- 
sand original Hindu hymns. Mr. Sen's followers 
believe that these are in some sense inspired. They 
found their church upon the doctrines gathered thus 
out of the mountain-tops of devotion. If you go to 
them and say that they ought to look into Julius 
Miiller's theology, or Canon Liddon on the Divinity 
of our Lord, or seek a knowledge of religious doctrine 
by the study of systematic intellectual presentations 
of religious truth, they are likely to treat you with 
much pity and scorn. They say : " Yes, indeed, that 
is what the theologians of the West do. They study 
and do not pray. We depend for light on a direct 
gaze into God's face." " What we mean to say is, 
that our doctrine and principles of faith and practice 
are not derived by processes of reasoning, but excited 
in our hearts by prayer and inner experiences, so 
that we cannot but view them as directly dispensed 
unto us by the Spirit of God. For a long time the 
Brahmo Somaj has ceased to believe in reason as the 
source of religion, and professed to look up to God 
for the direct revelation of truth in the soul. The 
Brahmo Somaj has always held the faculty of faith 
to be the organ for the discernment of spiritual reali- 
ties, and assigned in such matters a subordinate place 



KESHUB CHUNDER SEN AND HINDU THEISM. 119 

to reason." (" The Liberal and the New Dispen- 
sation," Mr. Sen's newspaper, Calcutta, May 14, 
1882.) " The New Dispensation is very different 
from what is known as Deism. It is also very differ- 
ent from that order of Theism which is only another 
name for natural religion. This may be called Ra- 
tionalistic Theism, and is legitimately assailable by 
philosophy. The religion of the New Dispensation is 
Revealed Theism, the deep spiritual religion produced 
in the soul by the direct contact and manifestations 
of the Divine Spirit in the history of man's soul and 
the life of the community called together by that 
Spirit." (Ibid. July 30, 1882.) 

In the religious services in the tabernacle, where 
Mr. Sen, when his health permits, presides, there is a 
most impressive ceremony, in which the whole con- 
gregation stand up and petition God for light. There 
is then a silence of several minutes, the whole of it 
occupied, presumably, in secret devotion. Every 
member of this church of the New Dispensation 
seems to be a man of prayer. Remember that these 
persons do not profess to be Christians. They say 
little against Christianity. Except by asserting the 
sufficiency of his form of theism, I could not find 
that Mr. Sen ever says a word against Christianity. 
He is an eclectic. He wishes to absorb into his sys- 
tem of faith and practice all those parts of Christian- 
ity that can be made to accord with his theistic prin- 
ciples. In moving the vote of thanks in the Town 
Hall at the close of a course of lectures which I had 
the honor to give in Calcutta, Mr. Sen said that In- 
dia is ruled by Christ. On another occasion, in that 



120 ORIENT. 

massive audience chamber, holding more than 3,000 
people, he said : " The crown of India does not be- 
long to Great Britain. It belongs only to Jesus 
Christ our Lord." He is almost constantly advanc- 
ing propositions that are nearly Christian in tone, 
and yet at frequent intervals he puts forward views 
which too closely resemble mere Hinduism. At times 
he exclaims : " Blessed Jesus, I am thine. I give 
myself, body and soul, to thee. Let India revile and 
persecute me and take my life-blood out of me, drop 
by drop, still thou shalt continue to have my hom- 
age." But almost in the same address he can say : 
" Christ's dispensation is said to be divine. I say 
that this dispensation, the Brahmo Somaj, is equally 
divine." 

He has introduced into his church several ceremo- 
nies imitated from old Hindu practices. There is 
great reverence for fire among many Oriental sects, 
and Mr. Sen has endeavored to transmute one of the 
old ceremonies, in which the use of fire is very promi- 
nent, into an impressive theistic symbol. He brings 
before his worshiping audience a vessel of metal filled 
with oil, and places at its side sticks of scented wood. 
He lights the oil and takes the wood, and, before the 
whole congregation, throws it, stick by stick, into the 
flames, saying : " Thus perish our lust, our pride, our 
worldliness, our unjust anger, all our divergencies 
from God." The ceremony is exceedingly impres- 
sive, for at the end of it the congregation cries out 
repeatedly, " Victory to God ! " and then he pro- 
nounces over them, or invokes upon them, the bene- 
diction : " Peace, peace!" Several ceremonies of this 



KESHUB CHUNDER SEN AND HINDU THEISM. 121 

kind, introduced by him, with slight changes from 
the old Hindu ways, appear to be intended to con- 
ciliate Hindus. Some of his ceremonies are open to 
criticism. For instance, he has introduced the drama 
and theatrical performances, to show the progress of 
the sinner from a state of rebellion against God into 
a state of complete union with him. He employs in 
bis own house, sometimes in a room adjacent to the 
sanctuary, theatrical exercises, to illustrate religious 
truths. He has dances, which he calls sacred, imi- 
tated from Hindu customs. The criticism which many 
acute missionaries make upon him is that his com- 
posite set of ceremonies and religious doctrines has 
in it so many appeals to ancient Hindu prejudices 
that it can never lead the mass of the Hindu popu- 
lations out of their attachments to hereditary mis- 
beliefs. Mr. Sen replies that he is anxious only that 
Christian truth should be presented to India in an 
Oriental dress, and that there should be something 
national left in the religion of Hindustan. 

Mr. Sen has been greatly blamed for allowing a 
daughter of his to be married to a wealthy Hindu 
prince before she had attained the age which he him- 
self had fixed as the least that should be insisted on 
in the reform of child marriages in India. The mem- 
bers of the less progressive part of the Brahmo 
Somaj, from which the church of the New Dispensa- 
tion is a secession, were especially bitter in their 
charges against Mr. Sen in regard to this marriage. 
He and his friends, however, as well as the most in- 
telligent British and American residents of Calcutta 
whom I met, assert that only a betrothal and not a 



122 ORIENT. 

marriage took place before the proper age had been 
reached by the parties, and that the accepted Brahmo 
principles were really not violated in spirit and hardly 
in form in this case. 

At the centre of the whole theistic movement un- 
der Keshub Chunder Sen, however he may be praised 
or blamed, are the sanctuary which I have described, 
and himself in communion with God, and the impulse 
of the Holy Spirit revealed through the individual 
consciences of his associates in worship. 

What are the merits of the theistic movement of 
India, and especially of the church of the New Dis- 
pensation, as led by Keshub Chunder Sen ? 

1. It unflinchingly opposes caste and idolatry. 

2. It rejects utterly the hereditary misbeliefs of 
Hinduism as to transmigration of souls, the infalli- 
bility of the Vedas, and the spiritual worth of ascetic 
practices. 

3. It is in deadly hostility to child marriages, as it 
was to the burning of widows, the exposure of the 
aged to death on the banks of the Ganges, and other 
familiar abuses fostered by Hinduism, 

4. It supports most vigorously the causes of educa- 
tion, temperance, and all philanthropic reform. 

5. It is utterly opposed to materialism, atheism, ag- 
nosticism, and every form of mere deism. 

6. It asserts an ethical monotheism, the fact of a 
supernatural Providence, and the duty and blessed- 
ness of prayer and of total self-surrender to God. 

7. It adopts from Christianity whatever it can rec- 
oncile with its theistic principles, and regards the 
Scriptures as the most important of the sacred books 
in use among men. 



KESHUB CHUNDER SEN AND HINDU THEISM. 123 

8. It seeks, on these positions as a basis, a real and 
formal union of all the religious sects of every nation 
in the Christian, the Mohammedan, and the pagan 
world. 

What are the defects of the church of the New 
Dispensation ? 

1. It teaches no effective method of delivering men 
from the guilt of sin. 

2. It has not exhibited power to deliver men thor- 
oughly from the love of sin. It has never yet brought 
men in large numbers and of ordinary education into 
a spiritually regenerate state. It possesses, in short, 
no trustworthy doctrine of the New Birth, nor of the 
Atonement, and so lacks religious efficacy in the 
points of transcendent moment. It is hence weak, 
both as a religion and as a philosophy. In practice, 
its effects, as compared with those of Christianity, 
are very inconsiderable, and likely to remain so. 

3. It adopts self-contradictory principles in its at- 
tempts to reconcile the various religions of the world. 
Its eclecticism is sometimes so broad and inclusive as 
to become explosive. 

4. It carries its doctrine of inspiration to the verge 
of fanaticism. Wholly without objective proof of the 
reality of this inspiration, the church of the New 
Dispensation claims to have received through its 
leader an infallible revelation for our day. This claim 
is as mischievous as it is untenable, and, if pushed, is 
likely to ruin the reputation of the movement with 
serious and well-educated men, not only in the West, 
but also in India itself. 

5. Theism, in its devoutest and most scholarly form, 



124 ORIENT. 

is simply a torso, of which Christianity is the neces- 
sary completion. A scientific doctrine of conscience, 
or a profoundly spiritual life, points to the necessity 
of man's deliverance not merely from the love of sin, 
but also from the guilt of it. Theism alone, however, 
without aid from Christianity, has never been able to 
effect for man this double deliverance. Only Chris- 
tianity, with its fathomless truths concerning the ne- 
cessity of the New Birth and of the Atonement, can 
do this. To set up theism, even its best form, as 
a rival to Christianity, is to prefer the torso to the 
whole figure, or the vestibule to the temple. 

As compared with the immense population of India, 
the number of Keshub Chunder Sen's followers is 
as yet exceedingly small. Something less than two 
hundred societies, with from fifty to an hundred mem- 
bers in each, include them all. The weekly audience 
in his tabernacle at Calcutta numbers only about 
three hundred. There are twenty-four Brahmo mis- 
sionaries, who act without salary and are supported 
by the income derived by the mission office from the 
sale of Brahmo publications, from contributions, and 
various collections. Mr. Sen presides with almost 
autocratic spiritual authority over this body of mis- 
sionaries. (" Faith and Progress of the Brahmo So- 
ciety," by P. C. Mozumdar, 1882.) 

Among the opponents and rivals of pure theism 
in India there should be noticed the Theosophists 
of Bombay. Their creed is a singular compound of 
Hindu occult science with Occidental forms of spir- 
itism, materialism, and atheism. It is vehemently 
anti-Christian at every point. The Theosophists are 



KESHUB CHUNDER SEN AND HINDU THEISM. 125 

led by two American adventurers — Colonel Olcott 
and Madame Blavatsky. When I was in Bombay, 
there came to that city an American infidel, only re- 
cently imprisoned at Albany for infamous crime. He 
was the editor of perhaps the foremost infidel news- 
paper rag of this continent, — a sheet which I hope 
very few of you ever see and which deserves to be 
handled only with the tongs. This man was on trial 
a few years ago for distributing infamous literature 
through the mails, and, under our righteous Ameri- 
can enactments as to that black crime, was sent to 
the Albany penitentiary for several months. When 
he left prison, " Scribner's Monthly " published an 
account of him, and the title of the article was " The 
Apotheosis of Dirt." When he came to Bombay he 
was received with open arms by the Theosophists, 
put on their platforms, and furnished with the very 
best opportunities to attack Christianity in all its as- 
pects. India thus came to understand the Theoso- 
phists, for they knew what the career of this infidel 
editor had been, and yet locked hands with him in 
ostentatious public attacks on Christianity. The 
Theosophists were boasting that they had drawn 
hundreds of pupils out of the missionary schools. All 
their documents show that one of their foremost ob- 
jects is to injure the progress of Christian missions. 
As the public of India was not acquainted with Amer- 
ican vulgar infidelity, I thought it my duty to ex- 
pose the career of this jail-bird, and I did so. The 
man came to one of my last lectures, carrying under 
his coat a horsewhip, which he did not use ! He ob- 
tained almost no hearing in Bombay. I was assured 



126 ORIENT. 

that he drew several hundred pupils out of mission- 
ary schools in Ceylon. He had few to listen to him 
in Japan. I heard of his great disappointments in 
San Francisco ; but, nevertheless, in every city where 
he went he was received with open arms by small 
coteries of atheistic or spiritistic circles, and by those 
uneasy classes represented by the secular unions and 
liberal infidel leagues in Great Britain and in this 
country. I found these people in various parts of 
the world reading almost the same literature and 
feeding themselves with the same atrociously unfair 
intellectual discussions. Men are measured by their 
reading, their heroes, and their pet measures. Bishop 
Huntington has said lately that we need not greatly 
fear any skeptical movement that we cannot intel- 
lectually respect. The last news from the American 
leaders of the Theosophists of India is that they 
have emigrated from Bombay, and have been una- 
ble to obtain any pleasant footing in Calcutta, and 
so have gone to Madras, which all through India is 
called the benighted presidency. 

Mr. Sinnett's " Esoteric Buddhism " has attracted 
much attention in England and the United States 
among people who have read with admiration Ed- 
win Arnold's "Light of Asia," and who are too little 
acquainted with the East to perceive that this light 
is twilight. Mr. Sinnett is now known to have been 
one of Madame Blavatsky's dupes. By the revela- 
tions of an assistant of hers in Madras, Madame 
Blavatsky, author of " Isis Unveiled," has been 
proved to be a charlatan of the most audacious kind. 
Sliding panels in doors, and various other mechan- 



KESHUB CHUNDER SEN AND HINDU THEISM. 127 

ical arrangements for producing portents, have been 
discovered in her official rooms at Madras, and her 
career as an impostor is ended. 

Keshub Chnnder Sen is a most vigorous opponent 
of theosophy and spiritism, as well as of agnosticism 
and materialism, although he has a brother who is 
reputed to be a spiritualist. Mr. Sen is the editor of 
a really able English paper, called " The Liberal," and 
in it he has frequent passages of his own, which for 
devotional depth are not often surpassed by our best 
religious literature. 

Conversing once with Keshub Chunder Sen, I 
happened to use the rather strange English words 
theoscopy and theopathy, as I was emphasizing the 
scientific fact that natural laws are only the habits of 
God, and so ought to give us a constant sense of 
his omnipresence. Whatever gives a vision of God 
prompts to total, affectionate, irreversible self-surren- 
der to Him. That surrender itself, more than any 
other natural cause known to man, gives a new and 
inner sense of the Divine Presence, and so theoscopy, 
or the seeing of God, leads to theopathy, or similarity 
of feeling with God. Mr. Sen grasped my hand with 
a sudden, impulsive gesture, and said that these two 
words expressed ideas which lie at the very centre of 
his own system of religious faith and practice, and 
were infinitely dearer to him than life itself. They 
are by no means the whole of Christianity, however, 
but only one of the glorious vestibules to it. 

In order to show how grand a temple the flaming 
Hindu soul can make of a mere vestibule, I quote the 
whole of one of the familiar sermons of Babu P. C. 



128 OKIENT. 

Mozumdar to his people, as given in his own trans- 
lation from Bengali (" The Liberal," Oct. 8, 1882). 
Bhakti and Yoga, which this sermon discusses, may, 
perhaps, be translated as Intense Love for God, and 
Communion with God. The impassioned style of 
this address reveals the genuineness of the spiritual 
emotions which prompted it, and unveils the most 
characteristic and valuable part of the religious dis- 
cipline of the church of the New Dispensation. 

YOGA, OR COMMUNION WITH GOD. 

[Translated from Bengali.] 
Sermon, Sunday, September 2Uh, 1883. 

Like my Bhakti, my Yoga is also an acquired virtue. I 
was not a Yogee when I began my religious life. I did 
not know what Yoga was, had never heard its name, and I 
never thought that I should have to walk in this path at 
any time. My only aspiration was to become thoroughly 
pure, to reform my character, and to submit completely to 
the will of God. This was my sole religion, and I never 
thought that there was anything like Yoga that should 
form a part of it. Thus did I pass the first fifteen years 
of my religious life, when, by the grace of God, my heart 
began to be filled with Bhakti. This Bhakti grew to mad- 
ness in course of time, and I felt, at last, that it was 
essentially necessary for me to cultivate Yoga to make my 
Bhakti lasting. The madness of love seemed to be very 
transitory, and it appeared to me that nothing but Yoga 
could keep the fire burning in me. I felt that, as I believed 
in God, I should be one with Him ; as my heart swelled 
with his love, my eyes should behold Him constantly. But 
Yoga was quite unknown in the Brahmo Somaj at that time. 
Thousands of people were drawn toward Bhakti, its influ- 



KESHUB CHUNDER SEN AND HINDU THEISM. 129 

ence was felt throughout the whole community, but people 
were very slow to appreciate the merits of Yoga. The fire 
of Bhakti easily spreads itself and catches the hearts of 
many ; but Yoga attracts very few toward it, as it is very 
difficult to understand and hard to cultivate. In hundreds 
of years you will find but a handful of men devoted to its 
cultivation. Therefore, though I became a staunch votary 
of Yoga, my friends did not follow it. I understood that 
life was not worth having if I were not one with my Divine 
Father. No precepts or scriptures taught me this truth ; I 
did not read of Yoga in any book ; as the grace of God de- 
scended in my heart in the shape of Bhakti, so did the wind 
of Yoga blow into my soul and I knew not whence it came. 
From two sides did these two things descend upon me as 
blessings of Heaven. Bhakti sweetened my Yoga and Yoga 
sanctified my Bhakti. They were twin brother and sister. 
Yoga without Bhakti ends in pantheism, and Bhakti without 
Yoga terminates in superstition. But in my life the rocks 
of Yoga are adorned with the beautiful gardens of Bhakti. 
When I open my eyes, I behold the God of Yoga with one 
eye, and the God of Bhakti with the other. I see my God 
in everything — in fruit and tree, in sun and moon, in air 
and light, and in fire and water. He is to me True and at 
the same time Beautiful. Where I saw earth and clay be- 
fore, there I see my God now. I did not practice any aus- 
terities to attain this God- Vision. I opened my eyes, and 
saw my Father everywhere and in everything. This is true 
Yoga. Whenever I look around me, I see the burning 
presence of my God — his infinite force filling every cre- 
ated being, his wisdom manifest in the whole universe, and 
his heavenly love embracing all creatures. This vision was 
not the result of much reading or learning, but it was a gift 
of Heaven. I did not realize this in the beginning of my 
religious life ; but now the fire of Divine Presence burns in 
and around me with infinite force, and, like a strong wind, 



130 OEIENT. 

his Presence touches my whole frame. My Yoga began to 
be deeper and deeper day by day, and now I am immerged 
into it day and night. I am not without Him even for a mo- 
ment, and I cannot imagine how at one time I was a stranger 
to this state. You may doubt my existence ; but you can- 
not doubt, in the least, the existence of God, who dwells in 
me. He is one with me. I need not offer you proofs of 
his existence. If you see me, you will see Him also. You 
cannot deny the one and accept the other. God will be 
manifest to you as a thing — ■ a person. I do not believe in 
the God of books. I believe in Him only whom I see with 
my own eyes. Brethren, do not believe in the God of im- 
agination ; be a Yogee and a Bhakti, and all your wants 
will be removed. Where I have seen Him you will see 
Him also. Despair not. 

The best description of the faith and practice of 
the followers of Keshub Chunder Sen is found in the 
words of the ritual prepared by himself for the cere- 
mony of the initiation of a new member in his The- 
istic Society. 

On the presentation of the candidate the minister shall 
thus interrogate him : — 

Dost thou know and believe in the essential principles of 
the New Dispensation ? 

Candidate. Yes. 

Minister. Art thou called by the Lord to join his 
church ? 

Candidate. Yes. 

Minister. Art thou resolved to submit to the discipline 
of the church and to bear witness unto the truth in thy 
daily life ? 

Candidate. Yes ; so help me God. 

Minister. Dost thou believe that God is one, that He is 
infinite and perfect, almighty, all-wise, all-merciful, all-holy, 



KESHUB CHUNDER SEN AND HINDU THEISM. 131 

all-blissful, eternal, and omnipresent, our Creator, Father, 
Mother, Friend, Guide, Judge and Saviour ? 

Candidate. Yes. 

Minister. Dost thou believe that the soul is immortal 
and eternally progressive ? 

Candidate. Yes. 

Minister. Dost thou believe in God's moral law as re- 
vealed through the commandments of conscience, enjoining 
perfect righteousness in all things ? Dost thou believe that 
thou art accountable to God for the faithful discharge of 
thy manifold duties, and that thou shalt be judged and re- 
warded and punished for thy virtues and vices here and 
hereafter ? 

Candidate. Yes. 

Minister. Dost thou believe in the Church Universal, 
which is the deposit of all ancient wisdom and the recepta- 
cle of all modern science ; which recognizes in all prophets 
and saints a harmony, in all scriptures a unity, and through 
all dispensations a continuity ; which abjures all that sepa- 
rates and divides, and always magnifies unity and peace ; 
which harmonizes reason and faith, yoga and bhakti, asceti- 
cism and social duty in their highest forms ; and which shall 
make of all nations and sects one kingdom and one family 
in the fullness of time ? 

Candidate. Yes. 

Minister. Dost thou believe in natural inspiration, gen- 
eral and special ? Dost thou believe in providence, general 
and special? 

Candidate. Yes. 

Minister. Dost thou accept and revere the Scriptures ? 

Candidate. Yes, so far as they are records of the wis- 
dom and devotion and piety of inspired geniuses, and of the 
dealings of God's special providence in the salvation of na- 
tions, of which records only the spirit is God's but the let- 
ter man's. 



132 ORIENT. 

Minister. Dost thou accept and revere the world's pro- 
phets and saints ? 

Candidate. Yes, so far as they embody and reflect the 
different elements of Divine character, and set forth the 
higher ideals of iife for the instruction and sanctification of 
the world. I ought to revere and love and follow all that 
is divine in them, and try to assimilate it to my soul, mak- 
ing what is theirs and God's mine. 

Minister. What is thy creed ? 

Candidate. The science of God, which enlighteneth all. 

Minister. What is thy gospel ? 

Candidate. The love of God, which saveth all. 

Minister. What is thy heaven ? 

Candidate. Life in God, which is accessible to all. 

Minister. What is thy church ? 

Candidate. The invisible kingdom of God, in which is 
all truth, all love, all holiness. 

Minister. Then avow thy faith in the presence of God 
Almighty. 

Candidate. This day the of 188 , I ... do 

in the presence of the Holy God solemnly avow my full 
faith in the essential principles of Pure Theism and enter 
the Church of the New Dispensation. So help me God. 

Minister. In the name of God I charge thee to eschew 
all manner of untruth and sin and sectarianism, and lead a 
life of faith and purity, love and devotion, unto the glory of 
God and of his holy church. 

Candidate. Most merciful God, grant unto me thy re- 
deeming grace that I may magnify thy truth and prove 
worthy of thy church. 

Minister. May the Lord bless thee and be with thee for 
ever ! 

The minister shall then present unto the candidate the 
Flag of the New Dispensation, and two of the members of 
the congregation shall stand forward and present unto him, 



KESHUB CHUNDER SEN AND HINDU THEISM. 133 

on behalf of the church, a copy of Scriptual Texts, a copy 
of the New Samhita, and a carpet for daily devotion, and 
embrace him with brotherly love. 

The candidate shall then bow reverently before the Lord, 
and the whole congregation shall say, — 

Peace, Peace, Peace. 

Very naturally, Keshub Chunder Sen quotes all the 
mystics. His object is to bring together all the de- 
vout hearts of the world. I part from this theme by 
reading, as a contrast to the sermon I have cited, Mr. 
Sen's last and really worst production, and yet it 
shows to what the man is tending : — 

THE NEW DISPENSATION -EXTRAORDINARY. 

NEW YEAR'S DAY, JANUARY 1ST, 1883. 

Keshub Chunder Sen, a servant of God, called to be 
an apostle of the Church of the New Dispensation, which is 
in the holy city of Calcutta, the metropolis of Aryavarta. 

To all the great nations in the world and to the chief re- 
ligious sects in the East and West ; 

To the followers of Moses, of Jesus, of Buddha, of Con- 
fucius, of Zoroaster, of Mohammed, of Nanac, and to the 
various branches of the Hindu Church ; 

To the saints and the sages, the bishops and the elders, 
the ministers and the missionaries of all these religious 
bodies : 

Grace be unto you and peace everlasting. 

Whereas, sectarian discord and strife, schisms and enmi- 
ties prevail in our Father's family, causing much bitterness 
and unhappiness, impurity and unrighteousness, and even 
war, carnage, and bloodshed ; 

Whereas, this setting of brother against brother and 



134 ORIENT. 

sister against sister in the name of religion has proved a 
fruitful source of evils and is itself a sin against God and 
man : 

It has pleased the Holy God to send unto the world 
a message of peace and love, of harmony and reconcilia- 
tion. 

This New Dispensation hath He in boundless mercy 
vouchsafed to us in the East, and we have been commanded 
to bear witness unto it among the nations of the earth. 

Thus saith the Lord: Sectarianism is an abomination 
unto me, and unbrotherliness I will not tolerate. 

I desire love and unity, and my children shall be of one 
heart, even as I am one. 

At sundry times have I spoken through my prophets, 
and, though many and various my dispensations, there is 
unity in them. 

But the followers of these my prophets have quarreled 
and fought, and they hate and exclude each other. 

The unity of Heaven's messages have they denied, and 
the science that binds and harmonizes them their eyes see 
not and their hearts ignore. 

Hear ye, men, there is one music, but many instruments ; 
one body, but many limbs ; one spirit, but diverse gifts ; one 
blood, yet many nations ; one church, yet many churches. 

Blessed are the peacemakers, who reconcile differences 
and establish peace, good-will, and brotherhood in the name 
of the Father. 

These words hath the Lord our God spoken unto us, and 
his new gospel He hath revealed unto us, a gospel of ex- 
ceeding joy. 

The Church Universal hath He already planted in this 
land, and therein are all prophets and all scriptures harmon- 
ized in beautiful synthesis. 

And these blessed tidings the loving Father hath charged 
me and my brother apostles to declare unto all the nations 



KESHUB CHUNDER SEN AND HINDU THEISM. 135 

of the world, that, being of one blood, they may also be of 
one faith and rejoice in one Lord. 

Thus shall all discord be over, saith the Lord, and peace 
shall reign on earth. 

Humbly, therefore, I exhort you, brethren, to accept this 
new message of universal love. 

Hate not; but love ye one another and be ye one in 
spirit and in truth, even as the Father is one. 

All errors and impurities ye shall eschew, in whatever 
church or nation they may be found ; but ye shall hate no 
scripture, no prophet, no church. 

Renounce all manner of superstition and error, infidel- 
ity and skepticism, vice and sensuality, and be ye pure and 
perfect. 

Every saint, every prophet, and every martyr ye shall 
honor and love as a man of God. 

Gather ye the wisdom of the East and the West; and 
accept and assimilate the examples of the saints of all ages, 

So that the most fervent devotion, the deepest commun- 
ion, the most self-denying asceticism, the warmest philan- 
thropy, the strictest justice and veracity, and the highest 
purity of the best men in the world may be yours. 

Above all, love one another and merge all differences in 
universal brotherhood. 

Beloved brethren, accept our love and give us yours, and 
let the East and the West with one heart celebrate the jubi- 
lee of the New Dispensation. 

Let Asia, Europe, Africa, and America, with diverse in- 
struments, praise the New Dispensation and sing the Fa- 
therhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man. 

There are Unitarians, there are friends of merely 
natural religion, there are theists, in the Occident, 
who look upon Keshub Chunder Sen as a man who 
is bringing in the religion of the future for the whole 



136 ORIENT. 

world through the gate of Asia. Compared with 
evangelical Christianity in India, the movement 
which Mr. Sen leads is a bubble. It has a certain 
power; but, as Christianity begins to obtain hold 
of the better educated classes, that movement will 
wane in influence. This religious reformer deserves 
the prayers of all good men that he may yet be 
led into a more profound knowledge of Christianity. 
My objection to his method is not that he prays too 
much ; but that he studies too little. I should not 
be surprised if, in his advanced years, he should 
retire to the Himalayas, and there, as a devotee, 
through a life of comparative solitude and austerity 
and the profound inspirations of secret prayer, en- 
deavor to make himself a prophet for the ages. It is 
in the man to do this. He is not a fanatic. A man 
more remarkable for religious than for intellectual 
genius, thoroughly honest, he is led by his moral feel- 
ing rather than by this and the judgment combined. 
He will at any cost try to push his effort for the uni- 
fication of the religions of all races. America and 
Europe will hear more of that movement. Keep 
your eyes upon it, and offer, at the same time, devout 
prayers that Keshub Chunder Sen and all his follow- 
ers may be led into the Himalayan Heights of Sinai, 
and there see the need of an Atonement and of the 
New Birth to deliver men from the love of sin and 
from the guilt of it. 



PARSEE WORSHIP AT SUNSET. 

At half-past five o'clock, as the sun was going 
down behind the rim of the Indian Ocean, I often 
saw a score of Parsees worshiping on the shore at 
Bombay with their faces turned devoutly toward the 
west. Approaching the water the Parsee first per- 
forms an ablution of his hands and face. Sitting 
erect he unbinds the cord which he uses as a girdle, 
and which is a symbol of good thoughts, good words, 
and good deeds. He holds the cord in his hands, and 
appears to be measuring yard lengths upon it, while 
he is uttering in a low tone passages from a prayer- 
book. Sometimes he passes the cord across his face, 
bows his head toward the sun, and has the air of 
one absorbed in introversive devout thought. The 
prayer-book is occasionally held in his hand, but usu- 
ally he recites from memory. After some minutes he 
is seen to kneel, touch his forehead to the earth, rise, 
and kneel again and again with his forehead to the 
ground. After a few more prayers, uttered while 
he is sitting erect, his girdle is restored to its place, 
and he often finishes his devotions before the sun has 
disappeared. I saw several aged men, however, read- 
ing their prayer-books with their faces turned toward 
the west after the disk of the sun was, out of sight. 
A Parsee gentleman fell into conversation with me, 



138 ORIENT. 

and I questioned him somewhat closely as to the 
mental attitude of the worshipers at these cere- 
monies. " When an educated Parsee recites prayers 
at sunset," I asked, " is he thinking of the sun or of 
its Creator ? " " The educated Parsee," was the 
answer, " thinks of the great Being behind the sun, 
but perhaps an ignorant Parsee thinks chiefly of the 
sun itself. The prayers have much the tone of the 
148th Psalm." "Fire and hail, snow and vapors, 
mountains, fruitful trees, praise the name of the 
Lord." 

The Parsee prayers ascribe glory to the sun and 
the sea, while it is the peculiarity of the mighty 
psalm here cited that it calls on the sun and the sea 
to ascribe glory to their Creator. This Parsee gen- 
tleman was intelligent enough to recommend to me 
Spiegel and Haug as among the chief writers on Par- 
seeism. He admitted that Parsees can be found who 
go through these ceremonies often, and yet cheat 
every day in their bargains. A moderate amount of 
serious light was in the faces of the worshipers as 
they turned away. Among the older men who were 
worshiping in the park near the sea with their faces 
toward the west, I saw two or three with peaceful 
and noble spiritual moods illuminating their regular 
and somewhat massive features with the light from 
the Sun behind the sun. 



PAKSEE TOWERS OF SILENCE. 139 



PARSEE TOWERS OF SILENCE. 

It was a bright, and not cool, morning when 
Mrs. C. and myself, armed with a letter of introduc- 
tion from Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeeboy, drove along the 
crest of Malabar Hill to the grounds in which stand 
the famous Parsee Towers of Silence. All the fresh- 
ness of the hour was needed to prevent a natural 
feeling of dissuasive horror, which might have pre- 
vented our visit had we yielded to our shudders 
rather than to our judgments. On a palm near the 
inclosure we saw a group of gorged vultures sunning 
themselves in the rising light of the east. We as- 
cended a broad stone staircase and passed into a 
stony field of some seven or ten acres, with tall 
palm-trees and a few not very stately lower growths 
scattered over it. Five towers of costly hard black 
granite, the largest of them about twenty-five feet 
high by fifty in diameter, stood on the heights of 
this field. They are colored white and are without 
ornament. Each one has a well in the centre. From 
the opening of this pit, an inner floor slopes at a 
gentle incline upwards to the rim of the tower. 
Corpses are placed on this slope. Those of men 
lie at the outer edge, those of women in the mid- 
dle, those of children at the rim nearest the well's 
mouth. 

The theory of the Parsees is that earth, fire, and 
water are too sacred to be defiled by the touch of a 
corpse. They expose a naked dead body on these 
Towers of Silence, and expect the sun and the wind 



140 ORIENT. 

and the rain, with the help of insects, to dispose of 
the fleshy part of the mortal remains. At Bombay, 
however, and in most other places within the tropics, 
swifter messengers than insects are sent to do the 
work of causing a corpse to disappear. No sooner is 
the naked body exposed than scores of vultures sweep 
down upon it. Within fifteen minutes, in most cases, 
the fleshy part is entirely removed from the osseous 
structure, and the gorged birds take their positions 
on the parapets of the towers. I counted twenty of 
these plethoric cormorants sitting almost motionless as 
a living coping around the edge of one of the largest 
structures. When the bones are dry they are picked 
up with tongs by men appointed for the purpose, and 
dropped into the well. Thus the dust of the rich 
and that of the poor are, at last, found in one recep- 
tacle. A Parsee is accustomed to say that God sends 
the vultures to do their horrid work in these towers, 
and that he had rather be eaten by birds than by 
worms. Monier Williams, reporting at length the 
defenses which the Parsees offer for their methods of 
disposing of corpses, endeavors to be tolerant of their 
shocking characteristics, and would seem to regard 
them as not more repulsive than Christian methods 
of burial. The disfigurement of the body, however, 
by the vultures ; the picking out of the eyes and 
the heart, not to mention ' a thousand and one other 
easily imaginable necessary horrors of the process, 
are a sufficient condemnation of the rather barbaric 
Parsee custom. In ordinary burial the figure may 
remain for years untouched within a leaden coffin, or 
even within a wooden one. Member is not separated 



MY RECORD IN INDIA. 141 

from member, even after the body returns to dust. 
Shakespeare's imprecations against any who should 
move his bones might well be called down upon the 
Parsee vultures. Near the Towers of Silence the 
reservoirs of water for Bombay lie, with wide gleam- 
ing surfaces, exposed to the sun. It is one of the 
questions agitated by the municipal government of 
the population who drink this water whether the 
vultures can be trusted not to pollute it, in case 
corpses filled with contagious diseases are carried to 
the Towers of Silence. It has been proposed to 
cover the reservoirs in order to prevent the contam- 
ination of the water, and another project is to force 
the Parsees to erect new towers at a distance from 
the city. 

On Shipboard, near Singapore, April 5, 1882. 

Twenty-one towns visited ; forty - two public ap- 
pearances ; eighty-four consecutive days in India 
and Ceylon ; three months precisely, from January 
5 to April 5, between landing at Bombay and arrival 
at Singapore ; such is the substance of my record in 
India. When my ship turns the end of the Malay 
Peninsula and sets her prow toward Hong Kong, I 
shall feel myself in China. From Singapore east- 
ward, letters go to America by the way of the Pacific, 
so that, when I pass this corner of the world, I shall 
begin to feel the winds from the Sierra Nevada and 
the Rocky Mountains, and even from my own Adi- 
rondacks and Lake George ! 

The Ganges is a part of my soul. The Himalayas 
have entered into the substance of my spirit They 



142 ORIENT. 

will remain there forever. The Taj Mahal is pos- 
sessed of a permanent place in my daily thoughts. 
At any moment I feel as if I could touch the Kutub 
Minar, the temples of Benares, the University tow- 
ers of Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. I see vividly 
the mighty harbors of the presidential cities of India, 
the stately bungalows in which I have been a guest, 
the crowded railway trains, the swarming markets, 
the multiplex life of 250,000,000 of men between 
Ceylon and Cashmere. I have my favorites among 
the tropical trees, which are no more strange to me, — 
the whole family of palms, areca, talipot, palmyra, 
cocoa-nut, and date ; the peepul, the mango, the tam- 
arind, the margosa, the Pride of India, the bamboo, 
the coffee shrub, the tea plant, the bread fruit, the 
mighty banyan. I remember the Bengal tigers in 
their jungles, and the elephants in the forests of Cey- 
lon and in the temples. I see the green parrots flying 
through the gardens of the Taj Mahal. There is a 
little bird, the barbet, or coppersmith, with a single 
mellow note like that of the cuckoo, a drop of celes- 
tial melody, which I have heard with intense delight 
from the foot of Kinchinjunga to the southernmost 
palms of Ceylon. 

After all, however, the most interesting objects I 
have seen in India have not been its rivers, nor its 
mountains, nor its trees, nor its monuments, but its 
men. No sight between the Himalayas and the sea 
has moved me as much as my audiences. They have 
appeared to me more worthy of study than any other 
fascinating view on which my eyes have rested. 
Brahmins, Parsees, Mohammedans, students, clerks, 



MARVELOUS ENRICHMENT OF LIFE. 143 

merchants, English, Scotch, Americans, but especially 
the educated English-speaking Hindus in their most 
critical stage of transition from their traditional un- 
belief to a new philosophical and religious faith, and 
crowding to hear discussions addressed to them in 
English on the highest themes, — these varieties of 
human types remain in iny memory and make my 
months in India a marvelous enrichment of life. 



IT. 

WOMAN'S WORK FOR WOMAN IN ASIA. 

WITH A PRELUDE ON 

RELIGION IN COLLEGES, AT HOME AND 
ABROAD. 

THE ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTIETH LECTURE IN THE 

BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN 

TREMONT TEMPLE, MARCH 12, 1885. 



" In consequence of our increasing enlightenment we have become 
capable of comprehending Christianity in its purity. Let mental 
culture go on advancing ; let the natural sciences go on gaining in 
depth and breadth, and the human mind expand as it may, it will 
never transcend the height and moral culture of Christianity as it 
shines and glows in the gospels ! " — Goethe : Conversations with 
Eclcermann. 

" Jesus represents within the sphere of religion the culmination 
point beyond which posterity can never go ; yea, which it cannot even 
equal. He remains the highest model of religion within reach of our 
thought. No perfect piety is possible without his presence in the 
heart." — David F. Strauss. 



There are no homes in Asia ! " — W. H. Seward. 

"Rise, woman, rise 
To thy peculiar and best altitudes 
Of doing good and of enduring ill, 
Of comforting for ill, and teaching good, 
And reconciling all that ill and good 
Unto the patience of a constant hope, — 
Rise with thy daughters. If sin came by thee, 
And by sin, death, — the ransom-righteousness, 
The heavenly life and compensative rest 
Shall come by means of thee." 

Mrs. E. B. Browning. 



PRELUDE IV. 
RELIGION IN COLLEGES, AT HOME AND ABROAD. 

It is an exceedingly significant fact that for fifty- 
years the number of our college students has in- 
creased more than twice as fast as that of our popu- 
lation. In 1830 there were only 4,021 college stu- 
dents in the United States ; now there are 62,435. 
(See American Almanac for 1883, p. 47.) What 
aspiration this one fact reveals in the American 
masses ; what heroic self-help on the part of many 
young men ; what generous assistance from parents 
of large incomes ; what pathetic self - denial in the 
case of many a father and mother of limited or nar- 
row means, but resolved to lift their son to an oppor- 
tunity better than their own ! Webster once invoked 
a curse upon himself if he ever forgot what his father 
did for his education. Carlyle felt through his whole 
life that he was standing on his father's shoulders. 
Let men who are not self-made remember who made 
them. Accursed is everything that brings a cloud or 
even a haze between a young man and father and 
mother, brother or sister ! Let students saturate 
their individual secret college lives with home life 
and home life with college life. 

It is said that three bad men give a tone to a regi- 

10 



\ 



148 ORIENT. 

ment. Six bad men will give a tone to almost any 
college class. With such great classes as our univer- 
sities of the first rank now have, it is uncommon not 
to find that number of bad men in a class. Under 
the subtle operation of precedents in college life, a 
few wild youth may give a lasting taint to many a 
society organized in their university. A college full 
of undergraduates is a world in itself ; but its mem- 
bers are not selected to match each other in moral 
matters. 

A young man who goes into college cringing and 
ducking, and acts like a poltroon in his first few 
weeks, in presence of a few rough -shod moral mis- 
leaders in his class, is very likely to be trampled on 
through his whole four years. A young man who 
allows himself to be ridden over by the moral roughs 
of a college for four years is likely to be ridden over 
by the moral roughs of professional life, and most 
especially by those of politics and commerce. He is 
not likely to have courage to stand erect in presence 
of the huge vices of our time. It is, therefore, of 
the utmost consequence that a young man entering 
college should be taught, in the first place, to con- 
front undergraduate giddiness with moral courage 
and manliness. 

If a young man is ruined in college, it is at least 
possible that he is not worth saving. If a young 
man, after such training as now usually precedes a 
college course, cannot stand up in college against 
the ordinary moral temptations of the place, against 
the sneers of a few dissipated classmates, against 
the petty annoyances that may be inflicted on him 



KELIGION IN COLLEGES. 149 

in his earlier college years because of his moral at- 
titude, then I say that such a young man is prob- 
ably not worth saving for the great purposes of a 
courageous public life. We must look upon such 
men as, in most cases, weaklings and poltroons, and 
try to create a soul under the ribs of their death by 
pointing out their cowardice. 

Some men, I know, are naturally shy and others 
brave ; but to each temperament Providence assigns 
special weapons of self-protection. The sharp-horned 
elk in the wilds of Africa has been known to be some- 
times a fatal antagonist of a lion. A Dean Stanley, 
in his preparatory school, used to kneel down at his 
bedside, in the midst of jeers from all quarters of a 
great apartment, and sometimes under missiles hurled 
at him from this corner or that, and offer his prayers 
as he did aforetime on his father's hearth. A shyer 
boy, perhaps, never went into a rough public school ; 
but in after life this man exhibited the same bravery 
to the very end that he manifested as a mere youth. 
His character in his public career, like that of many 
another scholar, was formed in part by the experi- 
ence he had of standing up with vigor in defense of 
his moral ideals when he was in the preparatory 
school and in college. 

In class pride and in the mechanical arrangements 
of students in colleges, there is a subtle temptation 
to make complaisance the rule, even in presence of 
vice. Young men are arranged alphabetically on the 
seats of the university class-rooms, and, perhaps, a 
man of high moral principle sits side by side with a 
moral leper. A wilted debauchee is not a fruit of the 



150 OKIENT. 

Tree of Life so much as a husk and a pod. The sap 
of youth is already drawn out of him by his vices. 
He is a cinder already, but you may sit beside him 
for four years. Still, of course, you must be cour- 
teous. A hero must be a gentleman ; but a gentle- 
man may also be a gentleman, and the full height 
of culture is obtained only by emphasizing both parts 
of this word. You must do what decency requires, 
but you need not invite that man to your room ; you 
need not form any social affiliations with him. You 
may treat him with courteous good-humor here and 
there; possibly you may have an opportunity to say 
a serious word to hiui more than once before your 
quadrennial shall end. Marvelous opportunity this 
is for you to rescue a brand from the burning ! 

Do you say that this is unpopular language in 
universities ? I have seen too many college brands 
burned to thin ashes not to be willing to use this lan- 
guage with entire frankness face to face with the 
haughtiest university on earth. I am some years out 
of the university, and I tell young men who are now 
in college, that, ten years after they are out of it, if 
they will call the roll of the dissipated men that they 
knew in their quadrennial, they will usually find seven 
out of ten of them approaching early graves. I do 
not know one man who had the reputation of a dissi- 
pated person in my college course that now has a po- 
sition of any honor in a profession. The test of the 
seaworthiness of new ships is to launch them in the 
surf. 

Ten years of self-support show of what substance 
young men in college were really made. It is possi- 



RELIGION IN COLLEGES. 151 

ble that a wealthy man's son in college may be dissi- 
pated, and yet live a smooth outer life ; but after he 
is out of college, let him be forced to take care of 
himself, let him begin to work in some serious busi- 
ness, let him enter a toilsome profession, and very 
soon his fibre shows that it has not much firmness. 
He is morally disintoned, if not melted, by his vices. 
His will is weak, even if his body has not been severely 
injured. The result in most cases is that he stum- 
bles in his first efforts, and, stumbling there, he stum- 
bles more or less in his second, and competition passes 
him by. In the rough contests of professional life he 
is very soon under foot and forgotten. 

Some dissipated men have been saved by an ex- 
acting profession, and some by a happy marriage, 
which no dissipated man deserves ; but these are ex- 
ceptional cases. You must not look forward to any 
such issue of your dallying with vice. It is indeed 
possible that as you grow older you will see that the 
apples of Sodom are full of dust and ashes, and are 
not food for rational souls. Mere ambition may lift 
you into something like honor, if not into religious 
principle. It is possible that love may take up the 
harp of your life, and — 

" Smite on all the chords with might, 
Smite the chord of self, which, trembling, 
May in music pass from sight." 

Perhaps this is what will happen, also, with sen- 
suality, and with indolence, and with all those loath- 
some habits which you have hugged to your bosom 
in your dissipated college course. But the proba- 
bility is that these vipers will continue to feed on 



152 ORIENT. 

your heart's core until you pass into your grave. I 
say, therefore, to the young men of honor in college, 
Shake off from the very first all company that is not 
respectable. Daniel Webster read through the life 
of Lord Byron, and said that there was not a single 
trait in Byron's earlier character that he could re- 
spect ; and that, therefore, he cared for no close as- 
sociation with the soul of Byron, simply because he 
was not respectable. He admired his genius, but re- 
membered that in the long course, under the opera- 
tion of the law of the survival of the fittest, he comes 
nearest to success who is nearest to God. 

By what methods may a man secure the right 
moral management of his life in college ? 

1. Association of the intimate kind only with re- 
spectable fellow-students, no matter how long the 
period of college acquaintanceship may be, nor what 
class sentiment may dictate. 

2. Devout cultivation of all the affections, sancti- 
ties, honors, and blisses of home life. 

3. Settlement of a plan for success in this world 
and the next. 

Benjamin Franklin, whom Thomas Carlyle called 
the father of all shrewd Americans, and of whom 
the French love to say that he wrenched the sceptre 
from tyrants and the lightning from heaven, was 
accustomed, at the close of every day, even in the 
busiest parts of his mercilessly crowded life, to exam- 
ine his actions and motives, and place against himself 
marks, black or white, according to the judgment of 
the innermost moral sense. While he was an ambas- 
sador at Paris he kept up this habit, and carried 



RELIGION IN COLLEGES. 153 

with him a little book ruled in thirteen columns in 
one direction and in seven in the other, and contain- 
ing the names of the cardinal virtues, in which it was 
his purpose to make himself, if possible, perfect. 

The next world is clearly visible from many of the 
heights of youth. Let young men cultivate assid- 
uously the wisdom which these moments give the 
soul. Take your loftiest moods and make them the 
guiding constellations of your lives. 

" Falter not to seize thy fore-wish, 

Where the many fear to clasp ; 

Noble minds may all accomplish 

They perceive and promptly grasp." 

4. Preparation to meet the demands of your own 
intellectual and spiritual growth. 

One mischief among young men is that they do not 
anticipate their own mental and moral development. 
Have not you outgrown the love of rocking-horses 
and kites and candies, and are you not likely to out- 
grow many of your present tastes? Provide for 
what you will be when, at forty years of age, or 
thirty -five, or thirty, you are in the midst of a 
crowded professional life. 

5. Anticipation of marriage. 

Remember what you will desire when you have a 
fireside of your own. A most delicate theme, you 
say, to mention to university students. Would God 
that it were mentioned somewhere every week in the 
ears of young men in colleges ! Would God that the 
future fire of the hearthstone could lie as a living 
coal on every tempted heart in our circles of young 
men in university towns ! When I left Phillips 



154 ORIENT. 

Academy, a great professor in Andover Theological 
Seminary said, in a farewell address to my class : " In 
view of the temptations of a college life, it would be 
well for every young man to have laid on his heart 
a living red-hot coal of God Almighty's wrath." 
Put upon the hearts of young men large gatherings 
of coals out of their anticipated future family fires. 
Take the burning incense off the marriage altar, and 
place it, while yet you are in college, on your heart, 
and through the ascending clouds of that holy obla- 
tion vice will reveal itself to you as the unspeakably 
odious thing it is. 

6. High intellectual aims, unflinchingly pursued in 
face of every discouragement. 

If a young man is tempted in college, let him aim 
to be first in his class, and very soon temptation will 
lose its attractiveness. My conviction is that most 
young men underrate the extent of self-improvement 
they are capable of achieving under the permanent 
pressure of high aims or the necessities of a profes- 
sion. 

7. Intellectual and moral nearness to the greatest 
and best men and persistent aloofness from the weak- 
est and worst in college faculties. 

It perhaps ill becomes me to speak of the living 
among our revered college instructors ; but I cannot 
resist the temptation to mention three or four men 
who stand as watch-towers on the stormy coasts of 
university careers — Mark Hopkins [applause] , Pres- 
ident Woolsey, James McCosh. 

At least twelve hundred students have been grad- 
uated from Princeton College since President Mc- 



RELIGION m COLLEGES. 155 

Cosh became the head of the institution, and only- 
six or eight of them have gone into the world be- 
lieving nothing. [Applause.] President McCosh is 
a philosopher of most eminent rank, abreast of mod- 
ern science, and almost monthly publishing discus- 
sions that lead thought in the most learned circles, 
here and abroad. Sixteen years minister with a col- 
league in a Scottish church of fourteen hundred com- 
municants, sixteen years professor of philosophy at 
Belfast University, and now nearly sixteen years 
president of Princeton College, this citizen of two 
hemispheres has to-day a voluntary class of some 
three hundred students in philosophy, and at the 
same time is one of the highest authorities in the 
world of advanced theological thought. He is not 
a sectarian. If he thought he had a drop of sectarian 
blood in his veins, President McCosh would be glad 
to open them and let it out. [Applause.] But he 
believes in clear ideas, he believes in spiritual pur- 
poses, he believes in conscience, he believes in natural 
religion and in revealed, and he allows his light to 
shine to the thirty-two points of the compass. In 
spite of his learning, in spite of the dignity of his 
office, in spite of the majesty of his character — or, 
rather, on account of it — he is accustomed to take 
young men to his study for personal conversation on 
religion and for prayer. Very few skeptical and dis- 
sipated young men leave Princeton without knowing 
what the president's private advice is in its relations 
to these high matters. I have read a statement of 
President McCosh concerning four young men who 
were particularly given to skepticism, and who re- 



156 ORIENT. 

fused, even under these influences, to be brought into 
anything like what he would call a reasonable mood. 
These four young men, although they left college 
nearly or quite agnostic, atheistic, or infidel in their 
general positions, all became Christian believers 
within ten years and three of them preachers. [Ap- 
plause.] May Almighty God multiply in our colleges 
men like Thomas Arnold and Mark Hopkins and 
President Woolsey and James McCosh, and a starry 
list of others whom your reverent thoughts will call 
to mind ! 

With emotions fitly expressed only by a famous 
poem of Matthew Arnold's, I stood once a long while 
alone in the stately chapel of Rugby, at the side of 
the marble slab in the floor covering the spot where 
Thomas Arnold lies at rest until the heavens be no 
more. A ray of the westering English sun fell upon 
it in benediction; but it seemed to come from the 
American heavens, so dear is this man's memory to 
hundreds here who never saw his face. 

I know not what may be the horror of a man who 
feels that he has ruined the physical life of another 
or poisoned the body ; but what ought to be the un- 
speakable horror of any college professor or president 
who by his sneers at Christianity poisons a soul ? A 
man who exerts a bad influence from a college chair 
becomes a block over which young men by scores, and 
possibly by hundreds, may stumble into moral disaster 
or a crippled state of soul, which will prevent stal- 
wartness in their public lives, when they are called 
on to perform the highest, duties. Would God that 
the few Gallios who reach college chairs, and treat 



RELIGION IN COLLEGES. 157 

religion with empty unconcern, could read with due 
appreciation Tennyson's poem on the temple of cul- 
ture in the " Palace of Art ! " After three years 
of isolated pride, Tennyson's soul, according to this 
poem, fell down in despair, called on God to teach 
it to pray, and to show it the means of deliverance 
from guilt. These acts are the loftiest pinnacles of 
culture. 

Would God that we could have in the churches at 
large such a vernal season as to melt all the masses 
of ice in the frozen altitudes of culture and transform 
them into bursting, perennial, crystalline springs and 
living, leaping streams on the mountain-sides of our 
universities, flowing down into the lower slopes of 
education, and fertilizing the great valleys with an 
inundation without ebb, and so passing as triumphant, 
far-flashing rivers, with universal benedictions, into 
the ocean of eternity! [Loud applause.] That is 
the service the world needs from college professors. 
Let them be rivers, and not glaciers, even if they are 
on the stately summits of Harvard. [Laughter and 
applause.] 

Let me defend here the good name of my Alma 
Mater, for there is not a paving-stone nor an elm-tree 
in the grounds of Harvard University, in Cambridge 
yonder, that is not a treasure to me. Her religious 
condition is vastly better now than it was a generation 
ago ; immensely better than it was at the opening of 
the century. Thirty years ago only nine per cent, of 
the students of Harvard were professed Christians ; 
to-day the proportion is thirty-two per cent. (The 
Rev. C. F. Thwing, in " Christian Union " March 1, 



158 ORIENT. 

1883. See also his excellent volume on " American 
Colleges," pp. 55-68.) There are little swirls of re- 
action now and then in the Harvard College life; 
but she must not be judged by these, but by her 
averages of influence, — not that I regard a student 
there as at any time in a hot-house intended to cause 
the growth of evangelical piety ! [Laughter.] A 
man who goes through Harvard and stands erect is 
likely to be able to stand erect afterward. [Ap- 
plause.] Harvard is now either the best or the worst 
place in our colleges in which to grow Christians, 
just as the open field is the best or worst place in 
which to grow a stalwart oak. If the oak yields, 
it snaps and lies prostrate ; but if it stands erect, if 
it throws out victorious branches to all the buffeting 
tempests, then, on account of the buffeting, it grows 
the stronger, and at the last becomes rounded and 
mighty toward the four quarters of the heavens. Its 
strength has been derived from the very winds that 
have assailed it by day and by night. Let a young 
man thus stand erect in college, and the more stern 
the conditions of his temptation the stronger he is 
likely to be in his spiritual maturity. 

8. Establishment of the chief points of religious 
belief. 

You cannot study the whole system of theology be- 
fore you are graduated. But set apart some portion of 
your time — I do not care if it is the whole leisure of 
every Sunday — for the study of the points on which 
you are most in doubt, and as to which you most feel 
your need of confirmation of conviction. Let several 
hours a week be used for special spiritual education, 



RELIGION IN COLLEGES. 159 

such as you require. Each man's case differs from 
that of every other man in many points. Let every 
young man go to the best and not to the second best 
adviser for religious guidance. If any college profes- 
sor, hearing an account of your peculiar temptations, 
turns upon you and asks simply, with a pagan stare : 
" What have you been eating ? Is not something 
the matter with your stomach?" turn from that 
man, shake off the very dust of your feet against him, 
and remember that the days of paganism have passed 
with men of clear ideas. It is atrocious to find col- 
lege professors giving stones, when they are asked to 
give bread. You will find professors to meet your 
need, if you search for them. 

There ought to be a pastor in every university, 
some man of eminent native endowments, of unsul- 
lied splendor of character, of unstinted largeness of 
intellectual acquisitions, of burning spiritual zeal, and 
broad, balanced love of progress. Let such a person 
stand before young men, and he will draw them as 
the magnet draws the needle. It cannot but be that 
a wise preacher will produce in his hearers the im- 
age of God, if only he is himself rightly intoxicated 
with God. Of what are our trustees dreaming, that 
they leave many colleges and schools, which are the 
most important parishes of New England, almost 
wholly without pastors of adequate equipment ? 

9. Let young men seek balance of culture. If I 
were to develop one feature in the countenance at the 
expense of another, I should be doing very much what 
is done in many college courses. It is the balance of 
features that makes the expression of the human face. 



160 OKIENT. 

The operation of an exclusively secular college course 
is to enlarge the eyes and lips, and sometimes the 
chin [laughter], and leave the other features un- 
changed. This is the style of human being that is 
apt to be produced by a merely scientific and classical, 
and not distinctively religious, university — a trun- 
cated, topless moral cone — the loftiest thing in the 
student not yet developed. Let young men remem- 
ber that it is symmetry of development that secures 
strength. The effort of our time to make men spe- 
cialists is a glorious and necessary one, indeed ; but 
it has grave dangers. The fragmentariness and nar- 
rowness of the culture of our average specialists are 
not enough emphasized. There is nothing much 
worse in the educational hazards of our time than a 
tendency to drill men out of all symmetry, into mere 
specialists. Any college that does not seek to give its 
students moral training, in some such sense as to lift 
them up to the really highest ideals of religious aspi- 
ration, is a one-sided affair and should be criticised in 
the name of culture. 

Rawness of thought in ethical and religious matters 
characterizes the graduates of secular governmental 
universities in India and Japan to such a degree that 
the crudest speculations of the agnostic and material- 
istic school are often received as the maturest wisdom 
of the Occident. The native reformers of Bengal, 
under the lead of Keshub Ch under Sen, are protest- 
ing with not a little success against the complete 
secularization of the courses of university studies in 
India. 

10. Scipio Africanus never began any public enter- 



RELIGION IN COLLEGES. 161 

prise of importance without first going to the Capi- 
tol and sitting some time alone, receiving, as he 
thought, communications from the gods. This pa- 
gan, one of the very noblest of the Romans, con- 
queror of Hannibal, his daughter the mother of the 
Gracchi, moved through his crowded and tumultuous 
life in the atmosphere of secret prayer. I keep a 
marble antique bust of Scipio Africanus in my par- 
lor, and every day it is an inspiration to me, — the 
scar on the forehead, the massiveness of the head, the 
uprightness of the look, the wary, searching, terrible 
Roman courage of the man ! Nothing apologetic or 
craven about him, nothing unbalanced, nothing de- 
ceitful, his soul a globe of intense white fire ! He 
would, as I believe, have been a Christian, and even 
a devout student of the innermost mysteries of Chris- 
tianity, if it had been presented to him. Mr. Emer- 
son objected strenuously to the abolition of devo- 
tional public exercises in colleges. Hegel called 
prayer the highest act of the human spirit. 

Let us unhesitatingly give the leadership of the 
highest education in the world to Him who was man 
at his climax, and so bring the whole earth into 
God's bosom ! [Loud applause.] 
11 



LECTURE IV. 

woman's work foe WOMAN IN ASIA. 

In the Southern Pacific Ocean, as I was pacing the 
deck of my ship and looking toward the Fiji Islands, 
I was told on indisputable authority that, in this 
paradise of the great deep, young girls were once 
fattened and sold in the public market as stall-fed 
cattle, for food. 

We are informed by entirely trustworthy African 
travelers that sometimes, when a king of the tropical 
regions of the Dark Continent dies, a river is turned 
out of its course by artificial means, a deep and broad 
excavation dug in its dry channel, a score or more of 
the king's male servants beheaded at the edge of this 
pit, and another score of human beings, called his 
wives, put into the pit alive. A platform of wood 
supporting the dead body is then constructed above 
them, and other wives are placed on the platform, 
clasping the limbs of the corpse. The earth is then 
shoveled into the pit upon all this palpitating mass 
of humanity, and the river is brought back to its 
course. 

Such is or was recently, the condition of women 
under the darkest shadows of paganism ; but in In- 
dia, under enlightened government, multitudes of 
women are in a condition scarcely less horrible. 



woman's work for WOMAN IN ASIA. 163 

According to an authentic and most recent official 
statement, which I hold in my hand, there are 21,000,- 
000 of widows in India, and half of these were never 
wives. Even under the rule of a Christian empress, 
paganism makes the condition of widows in India so 
desolate that it is a common remark among Hindus 
that, as a fate for a young woman, the old form of im- 
molation by fire is preferable to enforced widowhood. 
Distressing beyond our conception must be a life com- 
pared with which suttee is a blessing ; and yet suicides 
are occurring in India almost every week, prompted 
only by the terrible sufferings incidental to widow- 
hood enforced by law and social custom. 

How early may a Hindu girl be married ? At eight 
years, perhaps earlier. She may be betrothed, possi- 
bly, when she is in her cradle. Her intended husband 
is often an aged Brahmin, who soon dies. But the 
Hindu rule is that, if the person to whom the girl is 
betrothed, and whom, it may be, she has never seen, 
dies, the girl must remain a widow for life. The the- 
ory is that it is honorable in a woman to do all she 
can for the preservation of the health and the ad- 
vancement of the temporal and spiritual prosperity of 
her husband. If evil befalls him, suspicion fastens 
upon her ; if he dies, the extreme Hindu teaching is 
that it is right to treat her with disrespect, and that 
all the honor you give the husband should rebound 
as dishonor shown to his widow. The multitude of 
widows who never were wives shows how many per- 
sons betrothed have been separated by death before 
marriage occurred. 

Among orthodox Hindus, the widow must take off 



164 ORIENT. 

her ornaments and sell them to maintain herself. She 
must " eat her jewels." I do not affirm, by any 
means, that these rules of pagan orthodoxy are always 
carried out to-day with the higher classes of Hindus ; 
but, with 250,000,000 of people in Hindustan, there 
are, excluding Mohammedans, probably 150,000,000 
among whom such rules are very thoroughly followed. 
When the widow has " eaten her jewels," she may 
be supported by the family to which she belongs, but 
not before. Even when the time comes in which she 
may legally be supported, she is expected to practice 
very frequent fasts. The rule is that she shall take 
but one meal a day. Whether ill or well, when her 
fast-day occurs, she must abstain wholly from food 
for twenty -four hours. She shaves her head. A 
Hindu woman is naturally proud of the glorious or- 
nament of her black tresses, and when she loses them 
and all her ornaments, she is degraded in social 
standing, — not in the sense of dropping into infamy, 
but she becomes almost a chattel in a family. She is 
really the drudge of the household in which she ob- 
tains a precarious support. She may be kicked and 
cuffed ; she may be thrust into corners with the rats 
and bats and the rubbish of the house ; she may be 
made to undergo the severest physical labor of which 
she is capable. All this, in most cases, does not 
touch at all the pride of the head of the household, 
nor his sympathy. She is a widow; she is a thing. 

In many places in Northern India I saw little 
white stone monuments at prominent spots on hill- 
slopes and in the vicinity of temples, and occasion- 
ally by the sea-shore. These memorials were erected 



in honor of those who had performed suttee ; that is, 
to widows who had burned themselves on the fune- 
ral pyres of their husbands. A certain holy dignity 
was supposed to belong to this act. A lady well ac- 
quainted with the opportunities of observation which 
I had in the East was told by a cultured Hindu gen- 
tleman in Bombay that in very many cases suttee is 
undoubtedly preferable to enforced widowhood; and 
that, as the government forbids suttee and does not 
forbid enforced widowhood or child marriages, an old 
remedy for one of the miseries of Hindustan has 
been taken out of the hands of its population ! A 
remark of that kind may be a bubble, indeed, but it 
shows which way terrible currents of distress run. 
Suttee has destroyed its thousands, but the custom of 
child marriages its tens of thousands. 

The British government ought to prohibit child 
marriages, as it did suttee. It should prohibit them 
as it did the crushing of men and women under the 
wheels of the car of Juggernaut. It should prohibit 
them as it did the exposure of the aged and of the 
very sick on the banks of the Ganges, and the filling 
of their mouths and nostrils with the sacred mud, 
even before life was extinct, and occasionally, no 
doubt, for the purpose of bringing life to an end. 
Just as the British government has prohibited thug- 
gery and hook-swinging, so the best reformers are 
now claiming it might and ought to prohibit the child 
marriages, which are the pedestal on which enforced 
widowhood stands. 

If the noble constituency of the various American 
women's missionary societies should unite with their 



166 ORIENT. 

English and Scottish coadjutors in sending to her 
Britannic Majesty a memorial urging the prevention 
of child marriages in India by the law of the empire, 
they would, in my judgment, be doing not only a 
benevolent but also a timely and dignified act. 

It will be said that the British government in In- 
dia has deliberately adopted the policy of neutrality 
in regard to the religion of its subjects. Child mar- 
riages and enforced widowhood, however, are no 
more a part of Hindu religion than were suttee and 
hook-swinging and exposure under the wheels of the 
car of Juggernaut. Government abolished the latter, 
and has thus set a precedent which may be followed 
in the abolition of the former. In the Native Con- 
verts' Remarriage Act, the British government of 
India distinctly disregards Hindu custom and law by 
giving Christian women the opportunity of securing 
a divorce and the right of remarriage. There is thus 
opened to wives a privilege which, according to 
Hindu law, had belonged only to husbands. Many 
memorialists, among whom are hundreds of native 
gentlemen and a large number of missionaries, Eng- 
lish, Scotch, German, and especially American, ask 
the government to follow up this precedent. Child 
marriages, in certain circumstances, might be treated 
only as betrothals. The government is hindered from 
taking an active part in the abolition of child mar- 
riages, not by the want of power, but chiefly by the 
fear of venturing on a step which might cause com- 
motion in British India. (See President Woolsey 
on Christianity and Child Marriages in India, the 
« Independent," December 21, 1882.) 



woman's work for WOMAN IN ASIA. 167 

It is impossible to speak frankly on many delicate 
portions of my theme this morning ; but who doubts 
that child marriages explain a portion of the phys- 
ical weakness of the Hindus ? Who doubts that 
this race, which came from the northwest side of 
the Himalaya Mountains, and belongs to the same 
stock with ourselves, would be developed under far 
more favorable circumstances for the production of 
strength if child marriages were abolished ? 

The seclusion of woman in zenanas is so rigid that 
medical science, as well as instruction in Christianity, 
ought to be carried to the doors of Hindu house- 
holds by women. 

A man is not consulted as a physician by a woman 
in a Hindu household. You find some of the poorer 
classes of the Hindus ready to go to the hospitals 
that the missionaries open, and obtain medicine ; but, 
as a general rule, a Hindu woman had rather die 
than receive assistance from a man as a physician, at 
least, if the assistance requires that he should enter 
the zenana, the sacred female apartments of the 
Hindu home. An American medical missionary was 
not long ago called on to save the life of a wife of a 
prominent Hindu gentleman, after the native physi- 
cians had failed to be of service. He could not see 
the patient ; he was refused admission to the zenana. 
Finally, as the case was urgent and as the head of 
the household had a somewhat unusual freedom from 
Hindu prejudices, the physician was permitted to 
go into the room where the woman lay ill. She 
stretched her arm through a curtain. He was not 
allowed to feel the pulse ; but the husband felt it, 



168 ORIENT. 

under the direction of the physician, and thus a cer- 
tain amount of information was obtained in dubious 
style. A slit was cut in the screen, and the poor 
patient made to protrude her tongue through it ; and 
so the physician obtained further knowledge as to 
her physical state, prescribed the proper remedies, 
and her life was saved. But that husband would 
rather have seen his wife on her funeral-pile than 
have allowed this missionary to see her. Who can 
remedy these terrible mischiefs endured by women in 
Asia, except female medical missionaries ? They are 
wanted throughout all India. They are wanted in 
large numbers. An angel from heaven itself, as has 
been often said, would not be welcomed in many 
Hindu zenanas more cordially than a well-instructed 
female physician. 

There comes a new life into a household, and in 
those sacred hours when a mother trembles between 
this world and the next, she is usually treated like a 
thing, even in the best orthodox pagan-Hindu fami- 
lies. She is put into the worst room, probably, and 
for days and weeks no one is allowed to go near her. 
The air of the room may be like that of a miniature 
Black Hole of Calcutta, and yet there is no attempt 
made to purify it. She has only coarse food. Any 
touch of this mother by other members of the house- 
hold is pollution. Many lives have been lost simply 
by this barbaric exposure under circumstances when 
all human instincts called for the use of the highest 
medical skill. Send India, then, medical missiona- 
ries, equipped with the best learning of our Occi- 
dental science ; send medical missionaries, females, 



169 

with their hearts aflame with the Gospel ; and, be- 
yond any doubt, you will be doing for India what 
Christ our Lord meant that his disciples should do, 
when he said to them : " Heal the sick, preach the 
Gospel." The two duties go together, and we are to 
follow them to the ends of the earth. 

Among the evils of woman's condition in Asia, I 
ask you to keep long and often in your thoughts the 
almost total neglect of the education of daughters ; 
the arbitrariness of divorce ; the bondage to coarsest 
and severest physical toil ; infanticide, especially in 
China ; the binding of the feet of Chinese women ; 
the vices of the scoundrel whites in the sea-ports of 
the Orient ; and lastly, polygamy. 

The chief remedies for the evils of woman's condi- 
tion in Asia are zenana teaching by female mission- 
aries ; homes for temporary assistance to women ; fe- 
male medical missionaries ; female schools ; admission 
of women to university examinations ; abolition of 
child marriages by law ; a pure gospel taught to the 
whole community; native helpers in abundance ; and 
new fashions set by imperial courts and by the upper 
classes. 

The Parsees of Bombay, a remnant of the old Per- 
sians, are beginning to educate their daughters almost 
as thoroughly as their sons. Throughout Asia the 
cry is rising that women must be taught the elements 
of education. The most surprising, and perhaps the 
most significant, increase in missionary work in India 
in the past decade has been in the department of 
woman's work. Not only have four new ladies' so- 
cieties entered the field since 1871, but there has 



170 OKIENT. 

been an amazing development of indigenous work- 
ers. In 1871 there were 947 native Christian female 
agents engaged in missionary work. In 1881 there 
were no less than 1,944. The number of European 
and Eurasian ladies reported is 541. The successors 
of Lydia and Priscilla and Phebe and Persis and the 
daughters of Philip already outnumber the 586 men 
who not many years ago monopolized the use of the 
title "missionary." The progress of zenana work has 
been astonishing. Ten years ago Bengal had more 
zenana pupils than all the rest of India put together. 
Now the Northwest provinces have the largest num- 
ber of this class of pupils. The total number of fe- 
male pupils has increased from 31,580 to 65,761. 

It is not enough to send female physicians to India. 
A sufficient number of native women must be taught 
medical science, to make the supply of female native 
physicians unfailing. A most hopeful scheme is now 
being discussed in Bombay for the opening of the 
great medical colleges of India to women, and for 
the founding of hospitals under the exclusive care 
of female physicians of the very highest qualifica- 
tions. Women who enter the career of physicians 
must be able to compete with men. Their training 
and knowledge must be such as no rival can bring 
into discredit. 

A new leader of reform has lately appeared in In- 
dia, in the person of a learned young Brahmin widow, 
Rama Bhai, whose eloquence holds great audiences 
spell-bound in Bombay and Poonah and other im- 
portant cities, as she dwells on the education of fe- 
males, the remarriage of widows, the folly of the 



woman's work for WOMAN IN ASIA. 171 

caste system, and the evils of child marriages. Since 
the Ganges began to roll, no such figure as Rama 
Bhai has been reflected in its waters ! 

Japan, however, has gone further of her own im- 
pulse in the direction of education for woman than 
any other Asiatic country, and the reform has there 
the patronage of the highest persons in the court. 
The Empress of Japan, who is childless, is making 
herself the patroness of female education. Most of 
the great missionary bodies are opening vigorous 
schools for young women. 

Consider how vast Asia is, and how populous with 
brothers and sisters, and little children, as innocent 
and sunny-eyed as your own. Imagine yourselves 
moving along the Asiatic coast from Arabia to Japan, 
and entering the crowded sea-ports, at the mouths of 
the giant rivers. After five lectures in four consecu- 
tive days, under a vertical sun and to great assemblies, 
in the rustling paradise of Ceylon, I left that island 
on the last day of March, less than a year ago, and 
soon found myself in the mighty port of Singapore, 
near the Equator. Blue Sumatra lay in the distance; 
Borneo, with its pagan tribes and its birds of para- 
dise, was not far away. British fleets were there, 
almost a squadron of powerful vessels, laden with 
the products of the East Indies. A similar sight met 
me in the majestic harbor of Hong-kong. British 
power is visible in half the outlooks on any coast 
of the globe, in the ocean highways in the Eastern 
hemisphere. And so, pausing at Canton and giving 
there a lecture, I drifted, after nearly a month's voy- 
age, into Japan — an idyl of Nature seen in the idyl- 



172 OEIENT. 

lie season of May. There was much, of course, to 
give cheerfulness ; much to awaken encouraging 
thought as to the future of Asiatic reform ; but as I 
coasted along Ceylon, and the Malay peninsula, and 
vast China, day after day, I seemed to hear across 
the roar of the waves the turbulent sound of the bil- 
lows of humanity, breaking with a wail on the stern 
coasts of our yet barbaric days. Three hundred mil- 
lion human billows in China, half of them women ; 
two hundred and fifty million such billows in India, 
multitudes upon multitudes coming out of the unseen 
and storming across the ocean of time to break on 
the shores of eternity ! The sound of that sea was 
a wail from servile labor, and from the loftiest ca- 
pabilities of souls, dwarfed by ignorance and false 
faiths, and from infanticide, polygamy, concubinage, 
enforced widowhood, and many a nameless condition 
preventing the development of woman into the an- 
gelic being she is by nature, even without education. 
I heard the wail of these waves until I found myself 
resolved, whatever else I might do or might not do, 
to echo the sound of that ocean in the ears of Chris- 
tendom, until, if God should permit, some adequate 
enthusiasm for the reform of woman's condition in 
the Orient is awakened in the Occident. Every city 
of 50,000 inhabitants in America and Europe ought 
to send one female missionary into pagan lands. 

Put female education in Japan into the hands of 
Almighty God, and under his guidance the reform in 
that empire may become the day-star of the amelio- 
ration of woman's condition throughout the millions 
of Asia. The wail of the billows of humanity in In- 



woman's work for WOMAN IN ASIA. 173 

dia, in Ceylon, in the Malay peninsula, in Asia at 
large, especially in China, in the East Indies, in the 
Fiji Islands, and even in the Dark Continent, may 
one day turn into a shout of rejoicing. Provided only 
that the Occident does its duty, this transition may 
be swift. But if the wail goes on for a century or 
two more, I believe it will sound in our ears at the 
Judgment Day. We have power to send medical 
missionaries to these populations ; we have power to 
send both secular and sacred education to women 
throughout Asia. He who knoweth to do good, and 
doeth it not, to him it is a sin. Let this stern truth 
sound in the ears of sensitive women ! Let it sound 
in the ears of strong men ! Let it fill the whole at- 
mosphere of Occidental Christendom, until we are 
aroused to make God's opinion our own as to what 
should be done for women in Asia, Africa, and all 
the isles of the sea ! 



GLIMPSES OF THE CANTONESE. 

Canton, April 15. 
Canton is approached from Hong-kong by river 
steamboats through ninety miles of bold and beauti- 
ful Chinese scenery. Sailing northward from near 
the equator, it was exceedingly delightful to find 
April like itself, after having found January like 
July. The cool northeast winds were blowing from 
the mountains above Hong-kong harbor, and the ver- 
nal sun flashing over its mixed azure and amber as 
we moved briskly across it and into the magnificent 
breadth of the Canton River toward the north. Bold 
hills against the horizon ; green rice lands next the 
stream ; flocks of brown and gray Chinese junks 
basked in the windy sunshine. On many hills we 
saw pagodas. Several of these towers had shrubs 
and small trees growing on their ruinous summits. 
This was the China of my dreams, although the de- 
cayed aspect of these religious structures was a sur- 
prise. 

The hills recede farther from the shore, the wet 
rice-fields broaden, islands appear now and then in 
the stream, and finally, far toward the north, two 
spires and several towers, rising from a long strip of 
low huddled houses against the sky, are pointed out 
to us as Canton. We are soon abreast of the centre 






GLIMPSES OF THE CANTONESE. 175 

of this far from spectacular municipality, and find it 
looking like several square miles of the outskirts of 
New York, or of the wooden suburbs of Chicago. 
The houses are rarely more than one story high, and, 
at a distance, as well as near at hand, not a little un- 
couth, poverty-stricken, and barbaric. Boats dart to 
and fro on the river. Whole families live in small 
craft not twenty feet long. Junks of ancient fash- 
ion are mingled with those of more modern shape. 
Several vessels of considerable size are decorated with 
flowers, and we learn that they are devoted to infa- 
mous purposes. There are no carriages in Canton, 
no horses, no bullocks on the streets, and even no 
hand carriages in general use. 

As soon as we arrive we are assailed by the bearers 
of sedan chairs, and our captain has already recom- 
mended to us a guide who goes before us in a special 
chair. A man weighing more than two hundred and 
fifty pounds usually has four coolies, who groan a 
little as they adjust their bare, lemon-colored shoul- 
ders to the poles and straps. We are soon in the 
midst of a maze of narrow lanes from six to ten feet 
wide, and fronted on every hand by the multiplex 
shops of the ingenious and industrious Chinese. 

Workers in tin and brass, and iron and wood, ply 
their trades almost within touch, as we are borne 
along through the crowds in the resounding alleys. 
Here are markets with dried fish and strange fruits, 
shops exposing tempting arrays of jewelry, precious 
stones, especially the Chinese jade, book-shops, tai- 
lors' establishments, music stores, collections of curios, 
and every now and then a pagan temple. We feel 



176 ORIENT. 

ourselves in the midst of a human hive filled with 
the busiest kind of bees, going in and out, each laden 
with some form of honey or wax. The cells are nar- 
row ; the passages generally are crowded ; there is a 
universal hum. 

No city I have ever visited resembles Canton, 
though there are streets in Venice nearly as narrow 
and as crowded with shops as these. Take hoofs and 
wheels out of a city, and passageways need not be 
broad and may easily be kept clean, as they are here. 
Odors of sandal-wood fill the air in various places 
which we pass. There are certain strange smells in 
the poorest quarters. These are often offensive ; but, 
on the whole, the better parts of Canton are remark- 
ably tidy for quarters so constantly overcrowded. 

Gay banners hang in front of the shops, and bear 
in Chinese characters the often grandiloquent names 
of the establishments. As the eye becomes accus- 
tomed to the dim whirl of novelties and begins to 
notice details, the plan of the shops is seen to be sim- 
ple and convenient. The wide fronts are left open 
for light. The buildings are usually of one story, 
with lofty tile saddle roofs. In these there are fre- 
quently large openings, which admit a flood of light 
and fresh air to the interior. The shops are deep, 
and run back into various recesses, of which a few 
glimpses obtained give the observer a desire to see 
more, they are so neat, comfortable, and often elegant 
in appearance. A counter usually stands to the right 
as you enter. A row of seats on the left, at the bot- 
tom of the first room, forms another counter. Not 
far from the rear counter there is a religious shrine, 



GLIMPSES OF THE CANTONESE. 177 

at which, at night, a lamp is kept burning. Often 
there is a gallery, with ornamental balustrade under 
the tall roof. 

Received most cordially by those who are devoting 
their lives to the religious regeneration of China, 
our social duties and one or two public appearances 
take much time, but we managed to study very care- 
fully, and with the best of personal assistance, the 
Temple of the Five Hundred Genii, of the Five Genii, 
and of the combined Buddhist, Taoist, and Confu- 
cian worship, called the Temple of Horrors, as also 
the water clock, military headquarters, and the great 
Examination Hall. Perhaps the most sumptuous ar- 
chitecture and costly apartments we saw in any 
buildings were in the Mercantile Club Rooms. These 
are unmixedly Chinese in design ; but, except the 
ugly and loathsome dragons, they were not unpleasing 
to our western and perhaps rather relaxed standards 
of taste. The heavy black wood furniture, the canoe- 
shaped roofs, the sacred mottoes in gilt letters on red 
ground, the paintings of storks and flowers, all seemed 
to justify themselves by their merits. 

In the hall of Five Hundred Genii, rude busts of 
distinguished men stand in long rows. Incense is 
burned before them. The heads are all of Chinese 
type, round and somewhat lacking in height. It 
would be tedious to describe in detail the uncouth 
images in the temples, or the worship, if such it could 
be called, which we saw people offering before them. 
The Chinese suppliant shakes a set of bamboo sticks 
in a box as one might rattle arrows in a quiver until 
one drops out. On this is a certain number which 
12 



178 ORIENT. 

he carries to an official in the temple, who finds in a 
large collection of written prayers another number 
corresponding to it. This prayer the suppliant takes 
to some soothsayer or fortune teller and has it inter- 
preted. If the wishes of the worshiper are not met 
by the interpretation, he often goes back to the box 
and shakes out another prayer, and repeats this pro- 
cess until he obtains the answer he desires. Thus 
the pagan petition to an idol is, " My will, not thine, 
be done." 

The Examination Hall interested us as one of the 
chief doorways to the Chinese aristocracy. Twelve 
hundred students can be shut up here, each in his 
brick cell, about five feet deep by four wide and 
seven high. Each is expected to write in a given 
time, without assistance, a valuable essay on some 
text of the Chinese classics or other assigned theme. 
Out of some 1,000 who entered at the last examina- 
tion, only 120 passed successfully. 

The last meal I took in China was with a distin- 
guished native, who had founded a Christian college 
and was a millionaire. He had bird's-nest soup for 
breakfast, each cup of which cost five dollars, and 
each guest had two cups. His house was palatial in 
its appointments. He was a man of vigor as well as 
of refinement, of large quantity as well as of excel- 
lent quality; speaking English brokenly, but a prince 
in his manners. China contains a large number of 
persons of that type. I once heard General Grant 
affirm that the three ablest men he saw abroad were 
Bismarck, Gladstone, and Li Hung Chang, prime 
minister of China. I found China close at hand 



GLIMPSES OF THE CANTONESE. 179 

looking as if she might be able ultimately to insist 
on the keeping of treaties with even domineering 
Britain and haughty America. 

The Chinese are the most interesting objects in 
China. In a gnarled oak the roughnesses and protu- 
berances are naturally noticed earlier than the sound, 
strong timber at the heart of the tree. In the British 
character, for example, pugnacity, self-assertion, ego- 
tism, force themselves early on the attention of the 
observer ; but he who studies the Englishman thor- 
oughly will find sound timber underlying a some- 
what forbidding exterior growth. So with the China- 
man, one sees his faults more readily than his virtues. 
The general failures in a nation's effort, century after 
century, to attain the highest well-being are indica- 
tive of the average defects in the character of its citi- 
zens. China makes progress up to a certain point, 
and there pauses and petrifies in egotistic, unimagi- 
native conservatism. Industrial arts have flourished 
in China, but have never attained there the highest 
efflorescence and fruitfulness. The Chinese brain is 
fine-grained, but not large. It is fairly symmetri- 
cal, but is rarely massive. On the average it lacks 
height. The Chinaman is ingenious, patient, mild ; 
but in the loftier departments of imaginative and re- 
ligious activities of soul he is often prosaic and sec- 
ond rate. The chief faults of the Chinese character 
are unprogressiveness, self-satisfaction, narrowness of 
intellect, and thorough-going secularity. The chief 
virtues are filial piety, mildness of temper, persever- 
ance, ingenuity, and worldly shrewdness. 

China has educated in the Occident so many 



180 ORIENT. 

young men who are now rising to positions of influ- 
ence in the Celestial Empire that she very soon will 
have leaders who will understand and defend her 
rights under Christian international law and be able 
to protect her citizens from injustice at home and 
abroad. 

When Constantinople and Bombay, Calcutta and 
Shanghai shall once be connected by railways, it will 
be possible to make a tour of the world in six weeks. 
A fortnight will cover the distance from San Fran- 
cisco to London ; a fortnight that from London to 
Yokohama ; a fortnight that from Yokohama to San 
Francisco. China will ultimately be traversed by 
great and prosperous railways. Offers to open iron 
roads are even now being pressed upon the govern- 
ment at Pekin by various competing European syn- 
dicates. 



V. 

JAPAN, THE SELF-REFORMED HERMIT 
NATION. 

WITH A PRELUDE ON 

FOREIGN CRITICISM OF AMERICA. 

THE ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIRST LECTURE IN THE 

BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN 

TREMONT TEMPLE, MARCH 14, 1883. 



" Every four years there springs from the vote created by the whole 
people a President over the United States. I think the world offers 
no finer spectacle than this ; it offers no higher dignity. If there be 
on earth and amongst men any divine right to govern, surely it rests 
with a ruler so chosen, and so appointed." — John Bright. 

" Almost all travelers are struck by the fact that every American is 
in some sense both a patriot and a person of cultivated intelligence. 
No such wide diffusion of the ideas, tastes, and sentiments of edu- 
cated minds has ever been seen elsewhere, or ever conceived of as attain- 
able. Yet this is nothing to what we might look for under a govern- 
ment equally democratic in its unexclusiveness, but better organized 
under a graduated suffrage, assigning to education as such the de- 
gree of superior influence due to it." "Political life is indeed in 
America a most valuable school, but it is a school from which the 
ablest teachers are excluded, the first minds in the country being as 
effectually shut out from the national representation and from public 
functions generally as if they were under a formal disqualification." 
— John Stuart Mill. 



" The educational system of Japan is the best in the world." — Gen- 
eral Grant. 

" Whoever would see the Eastern World before it turns into a 
Western World must make his visit soon." — Daniel Webster: 
The Landing at Plymouth. 



PRELUDE V. 
FOREIGN CRITICISM OF AMERICA. 

Average Britons reverence pedigree ; average 
Americans, performance : the highest Britons, ances- 
try ; the highest Americans, achievement. 

There are two Britains and two Americas — a tory 
and a republican England, as there was once an oli- 
garchic American government under the slave power 
and a republican government in opposition to it. In 
our Civil War very few in England understood that 
there were two Norths and two Souths. There are 
an Americanized England and an Anglicized Amer- 
ica, but the former enlarges its boundaries more rap- 
idly than the latter. 

The tory England of the privileged classes and cer- 
tain sides of American fashionable society sympathize 
closely with each other, as do republican England and 
our most progressive American reformers. Neverthe- 
less, as Charles Sumner's experience, first as an ex- 
tremely ardent admirer, and finally as a most vehe- 
ment and searching critic of England, shows, even 
the best classes of the Anglo-American world often 
most seriously misunderstand each other in great 
matters, in spite of the speed and fullness of intercom- 
munication between England and America in our 
brisk day. 



184 ORIENT. 

It is a little amazing to open an English historian 
like McCarthy and read that during our Civil War 
those who endeavored to show that it was not easy to 
find a convenient dividing line for two confederations 
on the North American Continent were commonly 
answered that the Mississippi formed exactly a suita- 
ble boundary. It was an article of faith with some 
Englishmen who then most eagerly discussed seces- 
sion that the Mississippi flowed east and west and 
separated neatly the seceding states from the states 
of the North. [Laughter.] This was the wisdom of 
a certain portion of London club life. (See " History 
of Our Own Times," by McCarthy, vol. ii. chap, 
xliv.) John Bright used to say, during the hot 
contest against slavery, that every morning the lead- 
ing newspapers of London went into the streets of 
Europe to curse the American Republic. It was a 
liberal British politician who declared that the Re- 
publican bubble had burst. Lord Russell spoke of 
our war as a contest in which the North was striv- 
ing for empire and the South for independence. Mr. 
Gladstone himself once said that Jefferson Davis had 
made an army, a navy, and a nation. There were 
three Englands during our Civil War — that of the 
operative and middle classes, usually for us ; that of 
society in London and the shop-keeping class, depend- 
ent on society, usually against us ; and then the 
government, strictly so called, which never took for- 
mal ground in favor of the South, but seemed at sev- 
eral times on the very point of doing so. The densest 
ignorance was found not with the operatives, who in 
Lancashire endured a cotton famine, rather than as- 



FOREIGN CRITICISM OF AMERICA. 185 

sist in breaking the blockade of the Southern States ; 
not with the middle class, represented by a John 
Bright or a Stuart Mill ; but with the haughty fas- 
tidiousness of London luxurious circles ; and even 
with the " Thunderer," which, whenever it spoke on 
American affairs, was commonly a blunderer. [Laugh- 
ter.] The British government itself was often ex- 
ceedingly in need of information ; for instance, when 
President Lincoln issued the emancipation proclama- 
tion, the only official reply made by England to that 
great act of our nation was that it could not be made 
clear to British common-sense why we emancipated 
the slaves in precisely those States where we had no 
power to carry out the proclamation, and did not 
emancipate them in the States of which we already 
had military possession. [Laughter.] That was one 
of the sapient remarks of Earl Russell himself. Two 
English noblemen were once standing before Michael 
Angelo's statue of Moses, which was intended for the 
tomb of Julius II., and one of them asked : " Why 
should Julius II. be represented with horns ? " The 
other replied : " They were a peculiarity of the Sforza 
family." No less a man than Keshub Chunder Sen, 
as we one day launched our small steam-vessel on 
the Ganges, turned to his American guest and asked : 
" Have you any rivers in America as large as this? " 
[Laughter.] I might have told him that it is a fact 
of physical geography that the seven largest rivers of 
Asia — the Oby, the Amoor, the Hoangho, the Yang- 
tse-kiang, the Yenesei, the Indus, and the Ganges — 
taken together, do not carry to the ocean as much 
water as the Amazon alone. Fearful of falling un- 



186 ORIENT. 

der suspicion of exaggeration, I was silent ; for I re- 
membered that Mr. Spurgeon once showed me in his 
study two pamphlet cases with the peculiar titles : 
"Bull on Bragging" and "Jonathan on Exaggera- 
tion." [Laughter.] 

In discussing foreign criticisms of the United 
States, my object is not to annoy either our critics or 
ourselves ; but to strike, if possible, a fair balance 
between the ignorant and the wise criticisms and 
between justifiable and unjustifiable self-estimation. 
Notice, first, a few points in the list of not very 
ignorant, unfavorable criticisms of America by for- 
eigners. 

1. Our newspaper press is deeply 1 colored by our 
national and local peculiarities, good and bad ; but as 
yet more thoroughly by the latter than the former. 
Nevertheless, although it nowhere represents ade- 
quately our best traits, we are justly proud of it, on 
account of the merit of its upper portion. There is, 
however, a long tail to the kite of American journal- 
ism, and a considerable portion of it is bedraggled 
by the gutters. I have no patience with third and 
fourth-rate American journalism ; nor with our peo- 
ple for having patience with it. I am proud of first 
and often of second-rate American journalism ; but 
I am ashamed of our people for not giving our best 
newspapers as good a support as they give to fifth- 
rate and sometimes to seventh-rate effort in the news- 
paper world. Allow me to say that I hope I do not 
lack appreciation for our best newspapers. They 
pay more for news than the British newspapers do. 
American first-class newspapers seem to me to be su- 



FOREIGN CRITICISM OF AMERICA. 187 

perior to the British in the discovery of news, while 
the British are superior to the Americans in the dis- 
cussion of it. 

It is most interesting to compare the journalism of 
the outskirts and edges of the British Empire with 
that of the frontiers of the American Union. I con- 
fess I am somewhat humiliated by being obliged to 
admit that I think the British Empire throws the 
blood of its heart out into its finger-tips more thor- 
oughly than we do the blood of the best parts of our 
civilization into the finger-tips of our frontiers. The 
newspapers of Australia are better than those of our 
Pacific slope. Look at this superb daily journal 
from Sydney, in New South Wales, Australia, the 
"Herald" [unfolding a paper before the audience], 
and which is called the " Times " of the Southern 
Hemisphere. The moment you take it in your hand 
you feel that here is a very different stock of paper 
from that which usually goes into even our best 
American sheets. You can carry that newspaper 
around the world, and unfold it every other day, 
without its becoming a rag ; but there are many 
first-class American newspapers which you cannot 
use three days without finding them drop to pieces, 
of such poor quality is the paper. San Francisco 
publishes no paper equal to the Sydney " Herald " 
or the Melbourne "Argus," both of them provincial 
sheets in the British Empire. The mere unprinted 
paper of the Sydney " Morning Herald " costs two- 
pence half -penny, and the paper is sold for two-pence 
— that is, four cents — the income being derived 
largely from advertisements. You observe that this 



188 ORIENT. 

paper does not display its advertisements ; they are 
all set solidly, an indication that space is worth some- 
thing in this sheet. But our very best dailies, with 
the exception of about three in New York and two 
in Chicago, are full of garishly displayed advertise- 
ments ; and what shall I say of journals in other 
parts of the country ? It is a sign of wide circula- 
tion in a journal to have compact advertising col- 
umns, without great loss of space occupied by scream- 
ing type. 

Our dailies are improving rapidly ; perhaps those 
of Chicago even more rapidly than those of New 
York. It does not become me to criticise the Boston 
press, for the best representatives of which I have 
great reverence. I wish exceedingly that the best of 
our newspapers were patronized ten times as well as 
they are. They deserve an immensely larger follow- 
ing than they have. I am obliged to notice, as I 
travel across the continent, that the wings of Boston 
dailies tire beyond the Hudson. Very few of them 
fly to Chicago. We have disadvantages here, because 
the ocean is on one side of us ; we can send a daily 
only one way. New York has much the same disad- 
vantage, in spite of the complexity of our railway 
system and her superior facilities for gathering news. 
Chicago has physically great advantages for the pur- 
poses of a daily newspaper, as it can send one four 
ways. That city is likely to be the newspaper cen- 
tre of the country. 

You say British newspapers are dull, and many of 
them are. But the best of them are not dull to 
men of thought and action. They grapple with dif- 



FOREIGN CRITICISM OF AMERICA. 189 

ficult subjects ; they always furnish a leader or two 
on the most intricate and complex matters of pub- 
lic interest. Our journalism, I fear, is open to criti- 
cism for running into scrappy discussions, that catch 
the eye of the multitude, but do not really fix the 
attention of educated readers. Our dailies are not 
as ready as the best parts of the English press are 
to discuss difficult themes every morning, three hun- 
dred days of the year. On the other hand, our news- 
papers are probably more entertaining than the Eng- 
lish. It will not do to speak of English journalism as 
all of it dull, because there is a class in society that 
finds mere scrappiness dull and thorough discussions 
in leading articles interesting. Let short paragraphs, 
as compact and incisive as sonnets, be made numer- 
ous on the editorial pages. They need, nevertheless, 
to be accompanied by leading articles containing a 
wider sweep of information and argument, and them- 
selves as compact as sonnets, in spite of length. It 
is said that such articles are not read ? Let them be 
on the most strategic and blazing of current themes, 
and the more thorough they are the more certain are 
they to command attention by rewarding it. There 
is room in America for a great improvement of our 
discussion of the news which we gather at such enor- 
mous cost. Why is it that our newspaper editors 
do not oftener remember the remark of the pres- 
ent editor of the " Tribune," that the day is coming 
when the position of a first-class editor will be more 
influential in the United States than that of a mem- 
ber of the Cabinet at Washington ? 

It is often said by our foreign critics that we are 



190 ORIENT. 

governed by newspapers ; but my reply usually has 
been : " No, not by newspapers, but by news, which. 
is a very different thing.'' The glory of our press 
is that it is willing to expend enormously for news. 
Its chief fault is that it does not discuss this news 
with as much thoroughness as the English would do, 
with the serious purpose of leading public sentiment. 
Of course, it is to be admitted that the arrange- 
ment of our politics is such that newspaper polit- 
ical discussion is often not very effective. " In the 
United States," says Walter Bagehot in his admirable 
book on the English Constitution (p. 22), " the same 
difficulty oppresses the press which oppresses the leg- 
islature. It can do nothing. It cannot change the 
administration ; the executive was elected for such 
and such years, and for such and such years it lasts. 
People wonder that so literary a people as the Amer- 
icans — a people who read more than any people who 
ever lived and who read so many newspapers — 
should have such bad newspapers. The papers are 
not so good as the English, because they have not 
the same motive to be good as the English papers. . . . 
The ; Times' has made many ministries. If a "Wash- 
ington paper could have turned out Mr. Lincoln there 
would have been good writing and fine argument in 
the Washington papers. But the Washington news- 
papers can no more remove a president during his 
term of place than the ' Times ' can remove a lord 
mayor during his term of office. Nobody cares for a 
debate in Congress which comes to nothing, and no 
one reads long articles which have no influence on 
events. The Americans glance at the heads of news 



FOREIGN CRITICISM OF AMERICA. 191 

and through the paper. They do not enter upon a 
discussion. They do not think of entering upon a 
discussion which would be useless." 

Do political parties own newspapers? Do counting- 
rooms put ropes around the necks of editors ? What 
the people want in a newspaper is not only news, 
but intellectual and moral leadership. The chief 
writers for our daily press are brave and scholarly 
men, but they seem to lack a large portion of charac- 
teristic American courage in their discussion of issues 
unpopular with great leading parties in both church 
and state. The press of Chicago criticises our East- 
ern press for timidity in presence of the foremost lit- 
erary, political, and religious powers in society. The 
East values newspapers less and books more than the 
West does. The best parts of the Chicago press con- 
tain much that is raw and crude, and sometimes ut- 
terly vulgar. The leading sheets of that city are to 
be praised as yet chiefly for their vigor and enter- 
prise. The quality of the journalism of Chicago is 
by no means equal to the quantity of it ; but there is 
improvement in it, there is life, there is courage, and 
well there may be, on account of the geographical 
position of the city, which is the queen of our lake 
region and of the upper half of the Valley of the Mis- 
sissippi. Sunday editions are an industrial and moral 
nuisance with which first-class English dailies almost 
never trouble their printers and editors and the pub- 
lic. Our critical weeklies, with one or two excep- 
tions, the foreign critics sneer at mercilessly. It is 
amazing that with 53,000,000 of people here and 
less than 40,000,000 in Great Britain, she should 



192 , ORIENT. 

look in vain for a parallel among us of her " Spec- 
tator," or " Saturday Review," or " Athenaeum." 
Her great quarterlies she thinks superior to ours in 
weight, as they certainly are in number; but I never 
found a Briton bigoted enough not to admit that our 
best illustrated monthlies surpass everything of their 
class produced abroad. It is safe to assert as a sum- 
mary that there is much more room than is popu- 
larly supposed to exist for the improvement of both 
American and British journalism, through the imita- 
tion by each of the best traits of the other. 

2. What is to be said of American manners from 
the point of view of our foreign critics ? " Webster," 
said Thomas Carlyle, writing to Emerson, "is a dig- 
nified, perfectly bred man, though not English in 
breeding." (" Correspondence of Carlyle and Emer- 
son," vol. i. p. 248.) Far be it from me to assume that 
American manners must be moulded exclusively by 
British or French or German or Italian ideals. We 
are the foremost Christian republic of all time, and 
soon to be the wealthiest, as we are already the most 
progressive, of the nations. We have a right to a 
standard of manners of our own ; but we are most 
certainly open to criticism yet, as we were in the 
days of Charles Dickens's first visit, as to a number 
of large, avoidable mistakes in the field of man- 
ners. How shall I introduce the distasteful topic 
on which Dickens spoke so frankly, and which Mr. 
Emerson called "a fury of expectoration?" This is 
a most persistent, but let us hope not an incurable, 
American disease. There is not a cuspidor in the 
public rooms of the House of Commons, nor in the 



FOREIGN CRITICISM OE AMERICA. 193 

hall where the members sit. I have been in many a 
great English hotel, in which I have looked in vain, 
outside the smoking-room, which I never visit, 
for one of those characteristic American utensils. 
[Laughter.] What would a senator from Congress 
do in Parliament ? This disease of ours results 
partly from our climate, no doubt, which is drier 
than that of England. Miners and ploughboys in 
Australia fall into this American habit. The cli- 
mate there, at least in the central portion of that 
continental island, is very dry. We have a reputa- 
tion for excelling all civilized populations in coarse- 
ness in this matter. You would no more think of 
seeing in a first-class hotel in England or in the House 
of Commons or Lords, — whatever may be the case in 
the smoking-rooms on either side the main floor, — 
one of these utensils than you would think of seeing 
one in a church here. The fact that we can manage 
our churches properly shows that we could, if we 
would, manage other places properly. It is affirmed 
on the authority of official statistics that Russians 
and Britons consume annually only one pound of to- 
bacco per individual, bat that Americans consume 
three pounds, — that is, about six pounds per man, 
not per woman, thank Heaven ! [Laughter and ap- 
plause.] There is a certain lawlessness about our 
habits in regard to our use of the weed which our 
continent gave to the world that I have not seen 
elsewhere, unless it be in the ruder portions of Ger- 
many. Certainly in England well-dressed persons 
are more cautious about invading the rights of others 
through the use of this weed than they are here. 

13 



194 ORIENT. 

If a man smokes or chews tobacco, and you af- 
firm that he has a right to do so, it by no means 
follows that he has a right to make me smoke by 
smoking in my face, or to offend a whole company of 
people in a railway carriage, or even on the street, 
by a display of his offensive habit. [Applause.] I 
am ashamed of the good-nature of Americans on this 
point. We ought, as Herbert Spencer told us, to be 
a little more ready to growl in the English fashion in 
regard to small but real invasions of propriety, and 
we shall be ready to do this, no doubt, as soon as our 
population is more dense and it begins to cost more 
to let infelicities run their course. We shall arrest 
them when it is necessary to do so. Every genera- 
tion our ministry is taking a higher and higher posi- 
tion on the matter. There are a number of confer- 
ences of our powerful Methodist Church that will not 
now ordain a man who is an habitual user of tobacco. 
[Applause.] The greatest orator of Boston and of 
the United States I once heard say that he hoped the 
time would come when no gentleman would smoke 
on the public streets. [Applause.] For one, I echo 
that sentiment of Mr. Phillips, and I wish we might 
have a far sterner public sentiment on this matter, 
not merely among men but among ladies. If the 
gentler half of our population, the fastidious half, 
will assert its rights with a little bit of queenliness, 
men who have good habits will be immensely encour- 
aged, and men who have bad will be made to feel the 
pressure of discouragement. [Applause.] 

3. De Tocqueville thought that the bad manage- 
ment of our great cities will ruin us ultimately unless 



FOREIGN CRITICISM OF AMERICA. 195 

we keep a large standing army to govern them. 
This sentiment is heard constantly among our for- 
eign critics. 

4. The corruption of our civil service is a theme 
on which it seems as if Von Hoist, author of the 
most pessimistic European criticism of us written of 
late, must have been sent here to find ground for un- 
favorable opinions. I do not know that this author 
was subsidized by anybody in Germany to find out 
our faults and disgust Europe with American institu- 
tions, but if he had been, his employers would have 
had reason to be highly satisfied with the results of 
his work. Let us study Von Hoist, although he 
gives an hundred pages to the political chicanery of 
a Martin Van Buren, and hardly half a dozen to the 
great constitutional arguments of Webster against 
the doctrines of the South as to nullification and se- 
cession. 

5. Bondage to the uneducated, to illiterate voters 
or to the half-educated — this is the sternest of Amer- 
ican woes, as our haughtiest foreign critics think. In 
view of the extent of our illiteracy, it is difficult to 
show that there is not yet in this country something 
like bondage to illiteracy. In spite of the merits of 
our common-school system, our illiteracy is so great 
that in many closely-contested elections we are liter- 
ally under bondage to the uneducated or half-edu- 
cated. 

6. Sharp dealing and distrust Charles Dickens 
thought the worst vices of American commercial, po- 
litical, and even social life. When Richard Grant 
White was on the tower of Windsor Castle one day 



196 ORIENT. 

(" England Without and Within," by Richard Grant 
White, p. 155), the old keeper there pressed cer- 
tain attentions on him, which the musing traveler 
tried to shake off. " I beg your pardon," said the 
keeper, " but I think you must be an American 
gentleman. I should not have thought it if you had 
not been so suspicious. American gentlemen are al- 
ways suspicious, . . . being so accustomed, you see, 
sir, to be taken in at home." [Laughter.] A more 
just or acute remark than this has not often been 
made concerning our characteristic American mental 
attitude. 

Every man here is his own manager, every man 
his own protector. It is characteristic of our alert, 
pushing, fairly well-educated, shrewd American that 
the look of his. eye is: "Cheat me if you can." 
[Laughter.] Far more often do you find this look 
here than abroad. It is a good thing, this self-reli- 
ance, if it do not degenerate into self-assertion. It is 
a good thing, this acute caution, if it do not become 
mere suspiciousness. It is charged against us that 
we are more shrewd than conscientious in the colli- 
sions of trade and politics. It is affirmed, and with 
some truth, I fear* that there is among Americans a 
tendency to sharp dealing in little things that is not 
found in British and German society. Undoubtedly 
there is rascality enough in the British Islands, and, 
indeed, more physical brutality than here ; but many 
an American critic has admitted that there is less 
sharp dealing in small matters. In Great Britain 
everything centres in London, and if a rascal is found 
out anywhere in the islands, he is gazetted in the 



FOREIGN CRITICISM OF AMERICA. 197 

great metropolis ; while here you may know in one 
city that a man is a rascal, but not be able to pro- 
claim the fact easily in any one of a dozen cities to 
which that man may flee. There is opportunity to 
bring penalty on the dishonest man in Great Britain 
that there is not here. In a first visit abroad I twice 
found my American bankers falling into bankruptcy, 
and when I went abroad the last time I had an Eng- 
lish banker ; that is, I depended on a house in Lon- 
don. It is very humiliating to be obliged to make 
these confessions ; but, for one, I have come home 
with the conviction that there is left yet some room 
for our improvement in the matter of honesty in 
little things. An American may be, and usually is, 
the soul of honor in great things ; but we allow an 
amount of sharp dealing in little things that would 
disgrace a man in many circles abroad. Do not say 
I have brought a railing accusation against the Amer- 
ican character at large. We are more enterprising 
than any other people ; competition is fiercer here 
than anywhere else on earth ; there is vastly more 
opportunity to rise here than elsewhere, if one only 
has self-reliance and capacity. Temptation to sharp 
dealing is a great national allurement of ours, and 
should be resisted with all the sagacity and force 
of the American character. 

7. We are accused of having a fickle temperament. 
Britons, it is said, bear a long and steady strain in 
commerce, in politics, and in war better than Ameri- 
cans. " We do not care to be troubled with this 
theme any further," we say very often of an impor- 
tant but wearisome public duty. " We are too busy 



198 OEIENT. 

with our own affairs to attend to it. We have heard 
enough of it." " Let us not have this man's name in 
the newspapers any more." " Hush up the matter. 
What if we have not reached the truth concerning it 
as yet? We have no time to investigate it thor- 
oughly. Let it drop." This comes partly from Ameri- 
can overwork, from American haste, from the absorp- 
tion of individuals in their own affairs, where all have 
a chance to rise ; but I fear there is in our tempera- 
ment a certain fickleness which proceeds from other 
causes. 

It is most certain that the physical fibre of Amer- 
icans is refined by our climate. The magnetic pole 
of the earth is in the forehead of this continent. 
The magnetic intensities of our latitudes are greater 
than those of similar parallels abroad. Our climate 
is drier, and for this and a multitude of other reasons 
we are developing something of the Greek tempera- 
ment and the Italian. If you put Greek and Italian 
finesse with Anglo-Saxon daring, may God have 
mercy on the civilization that will be developed, un- 
less Christianity purifies it ! Give the American as 
much conscientiousness as he has will and finesse, 
and I regard him as incomparably the noblest human 
creature on earth. But there are many things that 
develop our will and our tendency to sharp dealing 
more rapidly than our conscientiousness. Our very 
temperament leads us, perhaps, into the Greek and 
Italian quality of fickleness. 

Improved fineness of fibre may explain our supe- 
rior capacities for art. We are undoubtedly devel- 
oping in this matter far more rapidly than Britain 



FOREIGN CRITICISM OF AMERICA. 199 

ever did, and are surpassing her through delicacy of 
touch. The dangers of our new temperament are 
numerous ; but its blessings are very great. Amer- 
ican oratory depends on it to a large extent. We 
are more fluent than our British ancestors. It has 
been said that whoever is brought up in the electric 
climate of our country, under our Northern Lights, 
in our nearness to the magnetic pole of the world, 
under our common-school system and our opportuni- 
ties for political advancement, is born with a speech 
in his mouth ; but if a Briton is born with a speech 
in his mouth, it is a speech with a stammer in it 
and a halt. Nevertheless, he utters very good sense 
usually, and there is in him capacity for a long pull 
and a strong pull. I have the feeling that the Briton 
is our superior in endurance, while we are his supe- 
rior in the matter of incisiveness, insight, and swift- 
ness in presence of any difficulty. 

" The new times," says Emerson (" Fortune of the 
Republic"), "need a new man, the complemental 
man, whom plainly this country must furnish. Freer 
swing his arms ; further pierce his eyes ; more for- 
ward and forthright his whole build and rig than 
the Englishman's, who, we see, is much imprisoned 
in his backbone." 

8. We are criticised for having too little original 
literature. British and German literary circles have 
a mild mania for something in poetry and prose that 
is distinctively American. We are savagely criti- 
cised for saying " I guess," where the Englishman 
says " I fancy." It is enough to mark us in the eyes 
of certain critics as a nation of Philistines that we 



200 ORIENT. 

" guess," and " reckon," and " calculate." , Britons, 
who forget that these phrases are never used by per- 
sons of thorough culture and careful habits of speech 
among us, are also very likely to forget how many 
millions of Englishmen have trouble with the letter 
h. The American vulgarism, after all, although its 
use is not to be defended for an instant, was once 
good Chaucerian English. Six times in as many 
pages of " Chaucer " I found this American phrase : 

" Her yellow hair was braided in a tress, 
And fell adown her back, a full yard long, I guess." 

Our American colonies, founded just after Shake- 
speare's time, brought his English to America, and 
our long colonial isolation fixed it in our usage, while 
British English has been Johnson ized and thereby 
not improved. American English to this day is 
more nearly Shakespearean than British English. 

9. We are criticised for lack of participation in 
the affairs of the Old World. We are said to have 
no sympathy with the struggles of weak nations out- 
side America. Following the advice of Washington 
to keep out of entangling foreign alliances, we have 
rarely, except once, in the case of Greek indepen- 
dence, expressed an opinion on affairs in the other 
hemisphere. We are sharply criticised for this by 
the best English and German philanthropists, and 
especially by those of France, for France has made it 
her glory to help weak nations. 

10. We are criticised for overwork and the haste 
that makes waste. Every American, so Europe 
thinks, is born half an hour too late, and is trying all 
his life to make up lost time. This is Herbert Spen- 



FOREIGN CRITICISM OF AMERICA. 201 

cer's criticism, and is one of the most just ever passed 
upon us. 

To look, now, at a few points on which opinion 
is divided abroad, I will mention, first, protection, 
which the mass of Britons, of course, do not believe 
in. If you are ever annoyed in British society by 
the persistent presentation of the advantages of free 
trade, turn about upon your critic and say : " Free 
trade may be a very good thing ; but do you believe 
in free trade in land ? " [Laughter.] That ques- 
tion usually staggers a Briton like a cannon-ball 
amidships. Several of the great states of Australia 
do not believe in free trade just now, although 10,000 
miles of ocean between England and Australia con- 
stitute protection for these colonies. Americans have 
the advantages of free trade between the various 
States of the Republic, and of moderate protection 
against the rest of the world. Opinion is divided as 
to the separation of church and state, but the most 
advanced of English reformers believe in the Ameri- 
can ideal on that matter. 

What are the favorable foreign criticisms on 
America ? Is it admitted that on a few points we 
have indisputably acquired a certain superiority to 
Europe ? In machinery we are confessedly superior. 
For nearly every purpose to which labor-saving ma- 
chines are applied, American inventions lead the 
world. Our watchmakers dazzle the Swiss and Eng- 
lish ; our cutlery outsells the British, even in Shef- 
field. The London " Times " once said there was 
not a more amazing outburst of genius in old Greece 
in the matter of art than there has been in America 



202 ORIENT. 

in the matter of machinery. It is confessed that our 
best engraving far surpasses the English. I heard 
one of the foremost publishers of Edinburgh, Mr. 
Nelson, whose name is held in honor on both sides 
the Atlantic, say he could find nobody in the British 
Islands to do for him such work as is issued every 
month in the " Century " and in " Harper's Maga- 
zine." Our railways, on the whole, are to be re- 
garded as the best in the world, although Britons 
will be slow to adopt our system for their small 
islands. Where there must be great rivers of night 
travel flowing constantly, sleeping-coaches must be 
introduced ; but there is very little night travel be- 
tween even London and Edinburgh, and so there are 
only two or three railway lines that have sleeping- 
coaches in Great Britain. The compartment coach 
has advantages of its own in a mild climate like that 
of the British Islands. The American system of 
checking luggage is the best in the world. 

Our best writers of monographs in science have 
the most unfeigned respect of the leaders of science 
in Europe. For example, take the recent essay of 
Professor Abbot, of Cambridge, on the Fourth Gos- 
pel ; take certain publications of the Smithsonian 
Institution ; take such scientific treatises as Professor 
Peirce used to issue in astronomy ; take the very 
best of our work in regard to electric lighting, and 
it is confessed that we are not surpassed even in the 
most advanced circles of science abroad. Our com- 
mon-school system, on the whole, is greatly admired, 
though probably it is not superior to that of Prussia, 
nor to that which England and Scotland will soon 



FOREIGN CRITICISM OF AMERICA. 203 

have. The aspiration of our masses, the temperance 
reform, the absence of a law of primogeniture and 
of a hereditary house of legislation, our just land 
laws, our high wages, — are all eulogized abroad. 

The best way to decide how much truth there is 
in foreign criticisms of America is to notice what 
your own secret thoughts are as you return to your 
country after a long absence. As I crossed the con- 
tinent lately I kept a blank book open before me, in 
which I entered on the right hand pages what I ad- 
mired in American civilization, and on the left what 
I disliked. A very singular and suggestive manu- 
script thus came into existence. The lists which I 
have now given of unfavorable and favorable criti- 
cisms made by foreigners are almost precisely what 
my criticisms were as I came back to my native 
land. 

America has ceased to be excessively sensitive to 
European criticism, or even to British. The poet 
Tennyson said to an American Northern gentleman, 
in a London parlor, during our civil war : "I wish 
you to understand, sir, that my sympathies and those 
of society here are on the side of the South." " I 
wish you to understand, sir," the American replied, 
" that we of the Northern States do not care where 
your sympathies lie. We expect to fight this war 
out on our own plan, for our own good and that of 
the human race." Tennyson treated his acquaint- 
ance with increased respect after this speech. Amer- 
ica is of age. Nevertheless, in Occident, as in Ori- 
ent, the worth of international criticism increases 
with its intelligence so rapidly in our day that the 



204 ORIENT. 

wisdom of Robert Burns deserves cosmopolitan ap- 
plication : — 

" O, wad some power the giftie gie us 
To see ourselves as ithers see us ; 
It wad from mony a blunder free us, 
And foolish notion." 



LECTURE V. 

JAPAN, THE SELF-REFORMED HERMIT NATION. 

Physical May in Japan is endlessly beautiful ; 
but her spiritual springtime is yet more fascinating, 
although it has not reached May yet, but is in early 
April. How swift and vast the change from her re- 
cent hermit January and February, and her stormy, 
revolutionary March ! Civilization in Japan puts 
forth buds of joyful promise. The spring brooks 
flash and foam where a little while ago the land was 
locked in the snows and ice of feudal politics and of 
traditional religious misbeliefs. The landscape is full 
of pleasant sights and sounds and odors. Now and 
then the song of birds fills the fresh air. It is good 
to be in Japan in the vernal season of the regenera- 
tion of an empire, and to have opportunity to cast a 
few seeds into the giant virgin furrows of reform, 
never before as promising as now in the Far East. 

What is to be seen in the land of the Rising Sun ? 
A nation born in a day. What are the chief traits 
of its inhabitants ? Those which have made them a 
population of artists and reformers. 

Approaching Japan from the west, over the misty 
and often turbulent Chinese Sea, you awake one 
bright spring morning and find yourself in the pres- 
ence of the paradise of green, conical islands which 



206 OKIENT. 

surround the harbor of Nagasaki. The celebrated 
missionary, Xavier, lived and labored on the island 
of Firando, not far to the north. You are soon sail- 
ing close under Pappenberg, the Tarpeian Rock of 
Japan, where, in 1638, hundreds of Japanese Chris- 
tians, who had accepted Xavier's doctrine, were cast 
headlong upon the tusks of the reefs at the foot of 
the precipices and into the sea. The birds sing audi- 
bly, in spite of the throbbing and the clanking of 
your ship's engines. The pines seem to stand as sol- 
emn mourners at the summit of the cliff, and to gaze 
in perpetual sadness down the murderous crags. You 
repeat Milton's sonnet on the massacre of the Pied- 
montese, and cannot deny yourself the delight of an- 
ticipating the ultimate religious regeneration of 
Japan, as you recall the heroism of her early Chris- 
tian martyrs, when as yet in the seventeenth cen- 
tury they had been taught only the corrupted faith 
of Rome. 

The faces of many aged women and men whom I 
saw in Japan interested me exceedingly by their 
though tfulness, symmetry, gentleness, and a kind of 
patient force, not unaccompanied by a considerable 
spiritual elevation. If you wish to know the real 
traits of a people, study the faces of its men and 
women in their advanced years, before the strength 
of the body has begun to crumble, and when ripeness 
of the soul is at its best. I think the faces, especially 
the eyes, of virtuous people in advanced life among 
the Japanese, are more nearly civilized than those 
of any other population I saw in Asia. The eyes are 
sensitive and sober, penetrating, and usually consci- 



JAPAN, THE SELF-REFORMED HERMIT NATION. 207 

entious, fairly forceful, and almost never arrogant or 
evasive. The children of a nation do not reveal its 
characteristic traits so thoroughly as its aged people, 
for their faces have not been chiseled by the experi- 
ences of life. One finds in the countenances of those 
who have fought the battle of their earthly careers 
the marks of both their natural and their acquired 
spiritual postures and activities. The faces of its old 
men and women are the best map of any nation's ca- 
pacity and actual life. 

The islands of Japan are best compared to those of 
Great Britain. They lie off the coast of Asia, much 
as those of Britain do off the coast of Europe, and are 
not far from the same size. There are four islands, 
however, in the Japanese group, that are of very 
considerable extent. The central and largest one is 
rather longer than Great Britain. From its extreme 
southern portion to its northernmost point its length 
is equal to the distance from New York to Chicago ; 
from the tip of the lowermost of the four large islands 
to the tip of the uppermost, the distance is that from 
New York to Omaha, or from Edinburgh to Naples, 
in a straight line. 

Passing through the Straits of Shimonoseki, any 
American or Briton ought to hang his head, for 
here, in gallant self-defense, a Japanese prince re- 
sisted the domineering entrance of English and Amer- 
ican vessels into his waters ; an act for which Japan 
was obliged — not merely by Englishmen, but by 
Americans — to pay a large indemnity. After any 
amount of intricate lobbying, it appears that a por- 
tion of this money, now amounting, with its interest, 



208 OKIENT. 

to $1,800,000, is likely to be paid back by our Con- 
gress ; but a larger sum than goes to Japan is to be 
given to the officers and crew of the vessel that we 
thrust into that most unrighteous sea fight, or will 
be in other ways retained by us. The Shimonoseki 
indemnity was wrung from Japan by a process no 
better than robbery. Thank Heaven that we are 
doing a little to show that we revere justice ! Great 
Britain has done nothing in the matter as yet. 

The Inland Sea of Japan is a gleaming silver and 
azure plain, 200 miles long, surrounded by bold and 
picturesque hills of vivid green, and dotted with hun- 
dreds of islands of surpassing beauty in their forms, 
groupings, and verdure. The eye never wearies of 
the study of its terraces of waving wheat, its hill- 
sides clothed in thick green copse, and their summits 
crowned by the murmurous gnarled Japanese pines, 
outlined against a sky as soft as that of the Mediter- 
ranean. Plainly, this land has never been ground by 
glaciers. Whoever would grasp the controlling fact 
concerning Japanese landscape scenery must remem- 
ber that the islands of Japan are volcanic in their 
origin, and that what we call the " drift " in geology 
has never been passed as a gigantic rasp over the 
conical hills thrown up by force of earthquakes and 
inner fires. Japan is part of a mighty submerged 
mountain-chain, extending from the Kurile Islands 
far southward, and lying on the edge of a great de- 
pression in the sea-bottom. There are twenty active 
volcanoes in Japan, and several more in the Kuriles. 
The chief peculiarity of Japanese scenery is that the 
hills have not been worn down by glacial action, and 



JAPAN, THE SELF-REFORMED HERMIT NATION. 209 

so there are a certain sharpness, symmetry, and name- 
less grace in Japanese landscape views that I have 
not found in other parts of the world. The tops of 
the hills are frequently as sharp as they can be with- 
out land-slides. Often there is breadth on them for 
but one row of pines. When a delicate haze over- 
spreads the landscape, it causes the hills to appear 
higher than they are, and the trees on their tops to 
look unnaturally large. Japanese landscape-painting 
has been criticised for making trees too large for the 
hills on which they stand ; but one glance at the 
characteristic scenery around the Inland Sea shows 
that what appears disproportioned in Japanese rep- 
resentations of landscape is really a close copying of 
Nature. 

Early one morning you are looking anxiously to- 
ward the east for a first view of Fuji-Yama while it 
is wholly covered by dark gray and purple clouds, 
which become fleecy white a third of the way up the 
arch of the sky. Gradually, as the sun beats upon 
this vaporous eastern wall, it falls apart, and above 
it looks out something white and vast, with an out- 
line that does not crumble in the sunlight. This is 
Fuji-Yama, the sacred mountain of Japan. You will 
never forget its glorious height, its saintly snows, its 
dazzling contrast with the azure behind it, nor the 
fleecy, multiplex vapors with which its breast is en- 
swathed and its feet covered down to the very edge 
of the far-flashing sea across which you gaze toward 
the whole celestial vision. When, later, you turn 
northward into the Bay of Yeddo, you see nearly 
the whole outline of the mountain rising against 

14 



210 OKIENT. 

the sky, like an open inverted fan. Standing wholly- 
alone, and having an altitude of over 14,000 feet, 
Fuji-Yama draws to itself from all Japan admira- 
tion and sometimes adoration. The natives really 
worship it as itself a god, and not merely, as the 
Greeks revered Olympus as the dwelling-place of 
the gods. Fuji is said to have risen suddenly, in 
the third century before Christ, in a great earth- 
quake, from the level of the sea. As its birth was 
portentous, it may well have originated devout awe 
among the inhabitants of the tottering island through 
whose crust it shot toward the sky. 

You land at Yokohama, a beautiful city, partly on 
a sea-washed plain, partly on a bluff, and your chief 
anxiety, after twenty-seven days at sea, is to escape 
into the green fields as soon as possible. After an 
outline study of the city, you employ a mellow, sunny 
afternoon in a rural excursion, which turns out to be 
idyllic. I must show you the land and people before 
I show you their reforms, and I ask you now to look 
upon a landscape which certainly is not easily matched 
anywhere on the globe. You roll smoothly along in 
your man carriages, jinrikishas, which are simply 
magnified children's carts, drawn by men — Pullman 
cars. You look abroad over the blessed, billowing 
grain, and remember the dearest country haunts 
with which you are familiar on the other side of 
the globe. Fuji gazes at you from the west. Mis- 
sissippi Bay flashes from below you on the east. 
Here are the waters through which floated the ships 
of our American Commodore Perry, who was sent to 
Japan, in 1853, by Daniel Webster, the first of our 



JAPAN, THE SELF-REFORMED HERMIT NATION. 211 

statesmen, to insist on the opening of Japan to West- 
ern commerce and the earliest circle of that typhoon 
of reform which has since swept over the empire. 
On this shore stood the natives, who thought Perry's 
steamers were imprisoned volcanoes. At the edge of 
these waters, in 1854, he set up a mile of telegraph 
wire, and had a locomotive put into action on an iron 
track. You pluck familiar flowers of the temperate 
zone in a walk through the green fields. Here are 
white clover and red, the violet, the dandelion, and 
the wild strawberry. The cherry blossoms, so prom- 
inent in Japanese art, are but a little past their prime, 
while the camelias and the azaleas, in the fullest blaze 
of their beauty, are drinking the mild sunbeams and 
the fresh sea-wind. At the foot of the bluff your 
jinrikishas roll through a picturesque village, and fol- 
low smooth roads back to Yokohama, through won- 
derfully verdant landscapes of rice-fields and pine-clad 
hills. Many of the slopes are covered with thickets 
of the most graceful bamboos, and now and then you 
see a somewhat chilled and undergrown palm. The 
wheat-fields rustle on the right and on the left. The 
pine-trees sing. The sunlight falls as a benediction 
on land and sea. You seem to hear a tremulous ce- 
lestial music in the sky between Fuji and the great 
deep. Looking up, you find that your fancy has not 
misled you. Far above the green, solemn country, 
are floating in the sea-breeze Japanese kites, with 
iEolian attachments, raining down a concord of sweet 
sounds — now low, now loud, now apparently near, 
and now distant, but always mysteriously ravishing 
to the ear and soul. Poems have been written by 



212 ORIENT. 

scores, in many languages, to express the mysterious 
meanings of the music of an iEolian harp; but of 
all positions in which this most pathetic and touch- 
ing of musical instruments can be placed, the best 
is in the evening twilight and the fragrant winds 
of spring, far aloft between the sea -shore and the 
stars. 

In spite of the fascinations of the theme, I have 
no time to pause on Japanese art further than to say 
that I believe that since the old Greeks there has 
been no nation that has had a larger spark of celes- 
tial genius in this matter than the Japanese. Al- 
ready their art is coloring more or less many portions 
of Occidental art. Probably no one school in art has 
done more to acquire a cosmopolitan influence during 
the last thirty years than that of Japan. No people 
known to history has ever exhibited a more intense 
love of the beautiful in nature than the Japanese. 
The native encyclopaedias are accustomed to point 
out the fine scenes of the noblest cities, lakes, and 
mountains. You bathe in Lake Biwa ; and, opening 
a native description of that wonderful sheet of water, 
you find much mention made of its eight beauties. 
No Greek, Roman, German, or English eyes taught 
the Japanese to see beauty in nature. Its enchant- 
ment seems to have been a passion with them for 
ages. Carlyle says that descriptions of scenery were 
not common in European literature until after Goethe 
gave to the world the "Sorrows of Werther." But 
here are the eight beauties of Lake Biwa as described 
by the Japanese in their own books when as yet they 
were a hermit nation : — 



JAPAN, THE SELF-KEFORMED HERMIT NATION. 213 

" The Autumn moon from Ishiyama ; 
The Evening Snow on Hoia Yama ; 
The Blaze of Evening at Seta ; 
The Evening Bell of Mii-dera ; 
The Boats sailing back from Yabase ; 
A Bright Sky, with a Breeze, at Awadzu ; 
Rain by Night at Karasaki ; 
The Wild Geese alighting at Katada." 
Eknest M. Satow, " Central and Northern Japan," p. 89. 

You give twelve lectures in Japan ; six in English, 
and six through an interpreter. As you study your 
crowded native audiences in Yokohama, Tokio, Na- 
goya, Kobe, Osaka, Kioto, and Nagasaki, you grad- 
ually form definite conceptions of the peculiarities of 
the physical, mental, and moral temperament of the 
Japanese. Undoubtedly, they have the temptations 
to falsehood and sensuality which are peculiar to the 
most sensitive races. Aspiration, honor, industry, 
patience, and cheerfulness, however, are natural to 
the Japanese character, and need only to be crowned 
by thorough training in Christian conscientiousness 
to transform the native sensitiveness of organization 
into a blessing and make it consistent with the judi- 
cial type of mind. The Japanese have been called 
the French of the East. They seem to me to be 
more sober than the Gauls were, as Julius Caesar 
found the latter, and more gifted in art, more aspir- 
ing, while not less generous, courteous, and brave. 
The Japanese are occasionally criticised for being 
physically small. I call them the diamond edition of 
humanity ; but they are marvelously well-formed, fine- 
grained, and compact in organization. A great phy- 
sician told me that he measured the height of an 



214 ORIENT. 

hundred as they came into his dispensary, and that 
the average was five feet two inches, which, I be- 
lieve, exceeds the height of Isaac Watts or Napoleon 
Bonaparte. 

The Japanese are exceedingly fine steel. The edge 
of the battle-axe in the Japanese soul, I think, is 
sharper by nature than in the Briton, or in the Ger- 
man, or in the American. There is not as much 
weight in the axe. There is not so much length of 
helve. This is the power of the German, the Briton, 
and the American, that, even with a dull edge, there 
are such size and weight in the axe and such length 
in the helve that the edge cuts its way through this 
rough world. The Japanese is the more delicate 
structure ; sharper, but, perhaps, without as much 
weight in the metal. Nevertheless, there is still 
great weight behind the helve, as in the Saxon or in 
the Frenchman, great smoothness in the helve and 
toughness. In ordinary affairs the Japanese will do 
better without education than the Briton or the 
American. They are a people of an ancient civiliza- 
tion ; they show the marks of it in their faces. The 
quality of steel is so good that a little education shar- 
pens them immensely. They improve faster under a 
given amount of training than the German peasantry, 
or the British, or the average American. This is say- 
ing very much ; but I respect immensely the fibre 
of the Japanese steel, the form of the axe, and its 
achievement in cutting down the mighty tree of 
feudalism, and in beginning to cut down the still 
mightier tree of paganism in the Japanese Empire. 

What were the principal causes of the reform of 
Japan ? 



JAPAN, THE SELF-REFORMED HERMIT NATION. 215 

1. The rivalry of the emperor and his chief general, 
the former called the Mikado and living at Kioto, 
and the latter the Shogun and living in the city now 
called Tokio and exercising really imperial power. 

2. The opposition of Japanese scholars, and espe- 
cially those of the school of the Prince of Mito, to 
this dual government and to the usurpations of the 
Shogun. This prince was born in 1622 and died in 
1700, and is regarded as the real author of the move- 
ment which culminated in the revolution of 1868. 

3. The fall of Pekin, the accession of the Tartars, 
and the overthrow of the Ming dynasty in China, 
and the dispersion of many refugee Chinese scholars 
throughout Japan. 

4. The oppressiveness and corruptions of the feudal 
system, of which the Shogun was the head. 

5. The influence of Western secular civilization on 
Japan after her gates were opened by the American 
Commodore Perry, in 1853, and by subsequent Brit- 
ish and other European intercourse. 

Perry arrived opposite Yokohama July 7, 1853, 
and made a treaty there March 8, 1854. Webster 
and Everett did more than any other American 
statesmen for the opening of Japan. It ought to be 
of interest to citizens of New England that the very 
first official document ever written by an American 
concerning the opening of Japan was penned by 
Daniel Webster, when he was Secretary of State 
under Mr. Fillmore. Our own Edward Everett fol- 
lowed up the enterprise most vigorously. To-day, in 
the Bay of Yeddo, you have two islands named for 
these two Americans. No thoughtful citizen of our 



216 ORIENT. 

republic can pass these spots without thanking God 
that the genius of these statesmen unlocked one of 
the rustiest gates of the Far East. 

6. The introduction of Christianity into Japan at 
various periods from the time of Xavier until that of 
the self-supporting Japanese churches of the present 
day. 

7. The native aspiration of the Japanese. 

In this list of causes which have led to the reform 
of Japan, you will notice that I have not put into the 
foreground foreign influence. Japan was reformed 
from within. (See Griffis, " The Mikado's Empire," 
especially chap, xxviii.) Foreign influence was more 
the occasion than the cause of her entrance upon a 
new political, educational, and religious career. It 
ought to be remembered constantly that the dual gov- 
ernment of Japan, under what were called the spirit- 
ual and the temporal emperors, never had the cordial 
support of the best scholars of the empire. The Prince 
of Mito secured the publication of a history of Japan 
in more than two hundred volumes, but containing not 
much more matter than Bancroft's " History of the 
United States." It became a classic and educated 
the best circles of the Japanese into opposition to the 
usurping Shogun at Tokio. Little by little patriotic 
public sentiment was aroused. As the Shogun was 
the head of the feudal system, I suppose his power 
would have been overthrown with violence, even if 
foreigners had not opened the ports of Japan. It is 
sometimes said by British writers that the bombard- 
ment of one or two Japanese towns introduced the 
empire to a new career, and that cannon-balls and 



JAPAN, THE SELF-REFORMED HERMIT NATION. 217 

powder and British bravery are to be credited with 
all the impulses that set in motion the recent great 
reforms. The truth is that without any bombardment 
of Kagoshima, or Shimonoseki, or any other place that 
has been approached by Britons or Americans in our 
capacity of pirates, the Japanese feudal system would 
have been overthrown. The head of it certainly 
would have been cut off, for before Perry landed 
public sentiment was ripening for the overthrow of 
the Shogun. The head of the feudal system once re- 
moved, it was easy to bury the body. It is true that 
feudalism was put down after the country was opened 
to foreigners; but the best judges, both foreign and 
native, are of opinion that it would have been put 
down without any incitement from abroad. 

There is a very suggestive parallel between the 
dispersion of the Greek scholars through Europe 
after the fall of Constantinople, and the dispersion 
of the Chinese scholars through Japan after the fall 
"of Pekin. The downfall of the great city of the 
Bosphorus was the beginning of a new period of cul- 
ture for all Western Europe, and so the downfall of 
Pekin was the beginning of entirely new impulses in 
Japan. 

Notice that feudalism in Japan was very oppres- 
sive, very corrupt. Great nobles spent their days in 
debauchery. They had, indeed, some military abil- 
ity ; they were proud of their reputation with their 
fellows, and were accustomed to commit suicide at the 
slightest infraction of their personal honor. Harikari, 
in Japan, was abolished only of late ; but these men, 
in spite of their bravery and their honor, were often 



218 ORIENT. 

exceedingly tyrannical and utterly debauched, and 
lived on taxes wrung from a comparatively virtuous 
peasantry. 

The chief influence, after all, in the reform of 
Japan came from the native excellence of the Japan- 
ese character. If the head of the Chinaman is turned 
toward the past, that of the Japanese is turned toward 
the future. The most beautiful trait of the Japanese 
is aspiration or willingness to adopt improvements, 
and to better them on every opportunity. 

What is the extent of the reformation in Japan ? 

1. It is represented in outline by the celebrated 
charter oath of the emperor taken in 1868, and faith- 
fully kept to this hour. 

"A deliberative assembly shall be formed. All 
measures shall be decided by public opinion. The 
uncivilized customs of former times shall be broken 
through. The impartiality and justice displayed in 
the workings of nature shall be adopted as a basis of 
action. Intellect and learning shall be sought for 
throughout the world, in order to establish the foun- 
dations of the empire." 

Think of such a proclamation as that issued by an 
Asiatic prince whose family antedates the Roman 
Empire ! The Mikado claims to be the one hundred 
and twenty-third of his race in succession from an 
emperor whose date is about 660 B. C. It is affirmed 
that the dynasty of Japan is the oldest known to his- 
tory. This document is the real basis of the new 
government. The Emperor promises the organiza- 
tion in 1890 of a national parliament, based on rep- 
resentative institutions. When the Emperor took the 



JAPAN, THE SELF-REFORMED HERMIT NATION. 219 

oath, he was only sixteen years of age. Its words 
were put into his mouth by the real leaders of the 
revolution — Okubo, Kido, Iwakura, San jo, and other 
rising officials, many of whom had received important 
impulses toward reform by what they learned of the 
Occident in studying in missionary schools. These 
men were almost all business managers, factors, and 
retainers of the territorial nobles. 

2. A large measure of freedom of the press is guar- 
anteed, and newspapers are numerous and influential. 

3. The feudal system is overthrown. An heredi- 
tary nobility, with at least 600,000 retainers, is dis- 
armed. The rule of the Shogun is ended. The 
Mikado has supreme power. 

4. The army, navy, and post-office system have 
been reorganized on the best western models. 

5. A university has been opened at Tokio, common- 
school education made compulsory, and seventy per 
cent, of the children of school age brought under in- 
struction. Schools for female education are efficiently 
patronized by the Empress and the nobility. 

6. Practical ownership of the land has been taken 
from a few privileged classes, and given into the 
hands of the people. The Emperor retains a title in 
the soil ; but the peasants can buy and sell leases of 
it for long periods. 

7. Most of the restrictions as to the admission of 
foreigners to the empire have been abolished. 

8. The preaching of Christianity and the growth 
of self-supporting Christian churches and schools are 
generally tolerated. 

9. The sending of embassies to the Western na- 



220 ORIENT. 

tions, beginning with the visit of Iwakura Tomomi 
and his associate ministers to the United States, in 
1872, and so making the circuit of the world, has in- 
spired Japanese statesmen with Western ideals, and 
brought the empire into friendly relations with Occi- 
dental powers. 

10. Native authors, teachers, politicians, and re- 
formers, exhibit prodigious activity in executing the 
common purpose of regenerating Japan, by the adop- 
tion of the best portions of the civilization of Europe 
and America. 

There is no quarter of Japan so obscure or distant 
as to have failed to hear not merely the rumble, but 
the thunder of the wheels of progress. The empire 
of Japan has risen from the low plane of feudalism to 
its present height of civilization almost as rapidly as 
its sacred mountain Fuji-san is said to have risen 
from the level of the sea — in a single night. 

These political changes are the background of the 
picture of the advance that Christianity is making in 
Japan. Only a very few years ago the inland towns 
of the empire could not be approached by preachers 
of Christianity, except in a private way. The best 
educated classes of the people are now more eager to 
hear the relations of Christianity to the future of 
their civilization discussed than to listen to political 
harangues, and they are living in a conflagration of 
enthusiasm concerning political reform. I have given 
question-box lectures in Japan, and have been much 
struck by the juxtaposition of political and religious 
inquiries on the same sheet of paper. For instance, 
these four, which I remember, were given to me at 



JAPAN, THE SELF-REFORMED HERMIT NATION. 221 

Kioto by a young professor : " Ought there to be a 
property qualification for the franchise ? What is 
the true definition of inspiration ? Should there be 
an upper house in our legislative assemblies ? How 
do you reconcile fate and free will? " 

It is a significant sign of the times in Japan that 
large assemblies will listen patiently and applaud- 
ingly to denunciations of Reformed Buddhism. On 
one occasion, in the city of Kioto, before an audience 
crowding the largest available hall, I was requested 
to occupy two hours in discussing the relations of 
Christianity to the future of the Japanese Empire. 
The request came from certain members of the leg- 
islative assembly of the city. It was understood that 
the interpreter, the eloquent young professor, Ichihara, 
would occupy as much time as the speaker. The re- 
sult was that we occupied together three hours and 
forty-five minutes, and discussed with entire frank- 
ness not merely the inherited misbeliefs of the Japa- 
nese, but especially their imported unbelief. The lat- 
ter, for the educated classes in Japan, is a greater 
danger at present, probably, than the former. Never- 
theless, the severest things I could say against Re- 
formed Buddhism and Shintoism and European and 
American infidelity were received patiently and ap- 
plausively by an audience quite as willing to express 
dissent as assent. For saying the same things in 
that city ten years previously, we should probably 
have lost our lives. 

Buddhism in Japan is making a vigorous effort to 
reinstate itself in the affections of the people. Many 
new temples are in course of erection by the Reformed 



222 OKIENT. 

Buddhists. Old temples are often repaired, at great 
expense. The men who understand Japan best, how- 
ever, think that this is only a spasm of a dying crea- 
ture. 

The Reformed Buddhistic doctrine differs greatly 
from the Buddhism taught in the Himalaya Moun- 
tains and in Western China. I had an instructive 
conversation with the foremost Buddhist priest of 
Kioto, and was at the time in company with one of 
the most learned of the missionaries of that city, and 
we found that by Nirvana this priest does not mean 
at all the cessation of personal existence, and, of 
course, not of consciousness. To the Reformed Bud- 
dhists of Japan, Nirvana means the Western Heaven, 
and it differs not much from the average idea of par- 
adise. The question as to the meaning of Nirvana is 
a difficult one, because the answer to it depends upon 
geography and dates. At certain periods of its ex- 
istence Buddhism has been understood to mean by 
Nirvana absolute extinction of individuality and con- 
sciousness. But with the masses of the Reformed 
Buddhists of Japan, the anticipation in regard to the 
future is not annihilation, but sometimes very like 
the outlook of the uninstructed Roman Catholic peas T 
ant. Max Miiller, when appealed to by two of the 
missionaries of the Reformed Buddhism of Japan to 
say whether their doctrines agreed with those of 
Gautama, the Buddha, replied, frankly : " No. You 
Reformed Buddhists have added a large number of 
doctrines to pure Buddhism. Some of the additions 
are most mischievous, and some of them are approxi- 
mations to Christianity. You have no thorough-going 



JAPAN, THE SELF-REFORMED HERMIT NATION. 223 

right to call yourselves orthodox followers of the 
founder of Buddhism. Your doctrines are not to be 
discovered in the earliest Buddhistic literature." I 
quoted this statement of Max Miiller to this distin- 
guished Buddhistic priest, and asked him what reply- 
he had to make. His only answer was, that in the 
forests of the Himalayas and in the sacred temples 
of Thibet there are many Buddhistic sacred books of 
which Max Miiller and the scholars of the Occident 
know nothing at all. 

American missionaries, especially the learned and 
eloquent Dr. Verheck, who may almost be called the 
founder of the University of Tokio, have had an im- 
portant influence in educating several young men in 
Japan, who have become prominent as leaders of the 
reformed party in the government. It is to be re- 
membered that Commodore Perry opened the doors 
of Japan when she was a hermit. America has prob- 
ably as much moral influence on Japan at this mo- 
ment as any other Western nation, and this because 
we were the first people to establish important rela- 
tions with her, as soon as the opening of her ports 
commenced ; and because American missionaries are 
more numerous in proportion to the population than 
those of any other nation ; but especially because 
America is not suspected of having any political mo- 
tives for her operations in the Far East. Although 
Great Britain controls India, on one side of Japan, 
and Australasia, on the other, it is, in my judgment, 
probable that America exercises a larger moral in- 
fluence in the Japanese Empire at this moment than 
Great Britain. 



224 ORIENT. 

The use of the Roman alphabet in printing Japa- 
nese words is a reform which seems now certain of 
success in Japan, and will enable the student to learn 
as much in two years as he formerly did in ten. 

No other set of missionaries has carried its system 
of self-support in native churches as far as those of 
the American Board. I am not inclined to criticise 
the policy of the Board in requiring native churches 
to support themselves as far as possible ; this sys- 
tem has the hearty respect of the Japanese ; but I 
think the system has been pushed by this Board in 
the Far East quite as far as the present condition of 
the native churches will warrant. There is a native 
church in Osaka which lately sent back funds to the 
American Board, stating that it was quite equal to 
the test of self-support. There are a dozen other na- 
tive churches that are wholly self-supporting. The 
ideal of the young Japanese Christians under the 
leadership of the American Board is that they must 
soon support themselves and be entirely free from 
dependence upon this country, not merely for money, 
but for teachers, both religious and secular. The 
Japanese are a spirited people, very quick to perceive 
the obligations of honor, and a Japanese Christian is 
yet a Japanese in these particulars. 

The career of Mr. Neesima, of Kioto, has been 
quite as remarkable in Japan as it was in this country. 
His history is a romance. In studying geography, in 
his early youth, he learned that the Western nations 
had been made great by their use of the Bible. He 
was moved to make inquiries as to this book; but 
found no satisfaction for his curiosity, and finally he 



JAPAN, THE SELF-REFORMED HERMIT NATION. 225 

ran away from his father's house, drifted to Shang- 
hai, and there obtained passage in a ship which took 
him eventually to America. The vessel was one of 
Hon. Alpheus Hardy's, and, when the captain reached 
Boston, he took Mr. Neesima to this distinguished 
merchant, and said : " Here is a young man who 
wishes to know something of Christianity. I thought 
you might be able to tell him something important 
on that matter." The boy was fortunate in falling 
into a circle in which Christianity is not merely a 
creed, but a life. His benefactor sent him to Phil- 
lips Academy, at Andover, afterward to Amherst 
College, and then to the Andover Theological Semi- 
nary. President Seelye, when asked by the Ameri- 
can Board to describe Mr. Neesima's career in col- 
lege, answered : " You ask me to gild gold." Mr. 
Neesima went home to Japan possessed of the zeal of 
an apostle. He is now at the head of an educational 
institution at Kioto which is likely to grow into a 
university. At present its chief business is to teach 
young men Christianity and the outlines of the Occi- 
dental sciences ; but it is Mr. Neesima's earnest de- 
sire to add to the school a fully equipped theological, 
medical, and legal department. His whole soul is in 
the work of regenerating the educational life of Japan, 
and at the same time promoting the growth there of 
the most vital forms of Christianity. The work of 
Mr. Neesima in Japan is perhaps exactly paralleled 
by that of no other young man there ; and, neverthe- 
less, there are several Japanese teachers who have re- 
ceived a thorough education in this country and are 
exerting an influence greatly similar to his. The 

15 



226 OEIENT. 

pastor of the self-supporting church at Osaka, Mr. 
Samayama, was educated at Evanston, Illinois, and 
is revered by his congregation and wide circles of ac- 
quaintances as one of the fathers of the modern Japa- 
nese Church. 

It must be confessed that some young Japanese, 
who in this country have united with our churches, 
have not led consistent Christian lives after they re- 
turned ; but I heard of no case of a Japanese that has 
received in this country a thorough theological educa- 
tion who has failed to stand up unflinchingly for his 
faith in his native land. It is an interesting point 
to notice that Japanese students sent to Europe very 
rarely return Christians, while a large number who 
are sent to America return convinced that Christian- 
ity should be the religion of the Far East. This 
difference is probably owing to the readiness with 
which Japanese students here are received into the 
better circles of society, and the great difficulty and 
frequent impossibility of obtaining any entrance to 
what calls itself society in Europe. 

It is most cheerful news that the Empress of Japan, 
who is childless, has made herself the patroness of 
female education. The Methodist bodies among the 
missionaries of Japan deserve high honor for their 
zeal in advancing this great cause. The city of Na- 
gasaki, one of the most beautiful in Japan, exhibits 
to the traveler who approaches it no building of equal 
prominence or dignity with the Female Seminary 
which has just been founded by the Methodist mis- 
sion. One of the finest mission buildings in the Far 
East is occupied^ by the female school of the Metho- 
dists in Tokio. Other denominations are doing much 



JAPAN, THE SELF-REFORMED HERMIT NATION. 227 

in the same direction ; but probably the Methodists 
lead in this reform, which has incalculably important 
relations to the whole topic of the regeneration of 
Asia. There are admirable female schools conducted 
under the auspices of the American Board. Dr. 
Hepburn, of the Presbyterian Board, is well known 
as the great scholar of the Japanese missions. He is 
the author of the standard Japanese-English diction- 
ary, and is often appealed to most confidently by 
the embassies of various nationalities to decide ques- 
tions of interpretation arising between foreign gov- 
ernments and the Japanese Empire. All the Protes- 
tant missionary bodies in Japan are doing superb ser- 
vice, and are really united in spirit. I was greatly 
impressed by the union of sentiment among mission- 
aries, not only in Japan but in China and in India. 
Soldiers who are face to face with the enemy must 
close up their ranks. The conflict with paganism 
brings out in the vanguard of the churches the hid- 
den half of Christian unity. 

Let me now answer the question : What dangers 
are yet before Japan as a reformed country ? 

1. The too speedy introduction of representative 
institutions. 

2. The growth of party spirit under political ri- 
valry, and enlarged freedom of public discussion. 

3. Imported heresies in political economy, such as 
socialism and nihilism. 

4. A large public debt, burdensome taxation, and 
threats of bankruptcy. 

5. The death-struggle of reformed Buddhism, Shin- 
toism, and other native hereditary misbeliefs. 

6. Imported unbelief. 



228 OKIENT. 

Japan needs to know the difference between the 
cream of the Occident and its driftwood and scum. 
Several teachers from the West have assured Japan 
that Christianity is waning in power in the Occident. 
Nihilism, socialism, agnosticism, positive atheism float 
into Japan on the waves of our literature. Japan 
will soon be too well educated to be misled as to the 
real sources of the greatness of England, Germany, 
and America. I hold in my hand at this moment 
the catalogue of the stock in trade of the chief Jap- 
anese book-shop in Tokio, and I ask any one who 
doubts my assertion to look into it for proof that 
there is in that one establishment as good a collec- 
tion of English books as you will find in almost 
any book-shop in the Occident. I hold in my hand 
the examination papers of the Japanese University. 
They are as searching as those of Harvard or Yale, 
or Oxford or Cambridge, the classics only excepted. 

After Iyeyasu, one of the greatest of Japanese he- 
roes, had won the battle of Sekigahara, he sat down 
and tied on his helmet, and said : " After victory 
tighten the cords of your armor." His wisdom is 
peculiarly necessary to Japan at the present hour 
of her great transitional period. Let her study the 
West until she learns that it is Christianity that has 
made the foremost of Occidental nations free, intel- 
ligent, powerful, and progressive. Only a scholarly 
and aggressive Christianity can guarantee the pros- 
perity of the Japanese future. Her inherited misbe- 
liefs, which cannot endure the light of real research, 
Japan is vigorously casting off. God grant that the 
Land of the Rising Sun may speedily cease to be the 
land of bats ! 



VI. 



AUSTRALIA, THE PACIFIC OCEAN, AND 
INTERNATIONAL REFORM. 

WITH A PRELUDE ON 

INTERNATIONAL DUTIES OF CHRISTENDOM. 

THE ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SECOND LECTURE IN THE 

BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN 

TREMONT TEMPLE, MARCH 26, 1883. 



" Throb on, strong pulse of thunder ! beat 
From answering beach to beach : 
Fuse nations in thy kindly heat 
And melt the chains of each. 

" For lo ! the fall of Ocean's Wall, 
Space mocked and time outrun ; 
And round the world the thought of all 
Is as the thought of one." 

Whittier : Cable Hymn. 

"Our helm is given up to a better guidance than our own; the 
course of events is quite too strong for any helmsman, and our little 
wherry is taken in tow by the ship of the Great Admiral which knows 
the way and has the force to draw men and states and planets to their 
good." — Emerson : The Fortune of the Republic. 



" There is no topic so pregnant as this of the mutual influence of the 
branches of the English race. The whole future of the planet de- 
pends upon it." — Professor Seeley: Expansion of England. 

" The evening-colored apple-trees 

Are faint with July's frosty breath ; 
And at the turning of the year, 

When August wanders in the cold, 
The raiment of the nursling here 
Is rich with green and glad with gold." 

Kendall : Moss on a Wall. 



PKELUDE VI. 

INTERNATIONAL DUTIES OF CHRISTENDOM. 

As, in the individual, an inner regeneration must 
precede any thorough outward reformation, so, in 
the whole world, which is made up of individuals, we 
must look to religion as the basis of secular reform. 
Nothing less stern than this is fit to be preached in 
the name of science or revelation. [Applause.] 

1. The growth of Christianity is already so great 
that it is responsible for the maintenance not only of 
national, but also of international, morality. 

2. But international morality cannot be maintained 
without leading to the reformation of international 
law. 

Such has been the marvelous growth of the Chris- 
tian nations in our century that in the last eighty- 
three years Christianity has gained more adherents 
than in the previous eighteen centuries. In the first 
1,500 years of the history of Christianity it gained 
100,000,000 adherents; in the next 300 years, 100,- 
000,000 more ; but in the last 100 years it has 
gained 210,000,000 more. These are facts of colossal 
significance, and they cannot be dwelt on too graph- 
ically or too often. By adherents of Christianity I 
mean nominal Christians — that is, all who are not 
Pagans, Mohammedans, or Jews. At the present 



232 ORIENT. 

rate of progress, it is supposed that there will be 
1,200,000,000 of nominal Christians in the world in 
the year 2,000. (Dr. Daniel Dorchester, "The Prob- 
lem of Religious Progress.") 

Not reformation only, but regeneration, is the de- 
mand of Christianity, of every individual, every peo- 
ple, and the whole unified family of the world's na- 
tions. As with the poet or the orator, it is not the 
inspired word that gives the inspired mood, but the 
inspired mood which gives the inspired word ; so it is 
regeneration of the world that is to bring about its 
reformation, and not its reformation its regeneration. 
It is religion that is to be the basis of all really hope- 
ful and permanent secular reform, and not secular re- 
form that is to bring in by and by a perfect religion. 
My conviction is profound that the preaching of the 
Gospel must go before any pervasive self-supporting 
success of great philanthropies, even in pagan nations, 
and that we must look for the world's regeneration 
in a large part before we can expect its reformation 
throughout any very wide and untroubled portion of 
its now vexed, fickle, and degraded populations. The 
perfection of civilization will not be reached until the 
world, as a whole, learns the strange new wisdom 
which is not the cause, but the result, of total and af- 
fectionate self -surrender to God. 

When once a royal procession was passing a bridge 
across the Spree, in the city of Berlin, Julius Muller, 
then a young man, fell into that river and was in 
peril of death. He yielded to God utterly as he sank 
in the waves ; he gave up his soul completely to his 
Father, his Saviour, his Lord ; and the bliss of that 



INTERNATIONAL DUTIES OF CHRISTENDOM. 233 

surrender, the inner fruitfulness of it, the strange, 
new, unexpected power and peace which came from 
it were his inspiration throughout all his subsequent 
devout and learned career. He found that yielding 
to God utterly gives an inner sense of God, just as, 
on a lower plane, the poet or the orator finds that 
yielding utterly to the inner impulse of conscience 
gives an intellectual power, a moral insight, a capac- 
ity of expression, a freshness, an incisiveness of 
phrase entirely unobtainable by mere will or by any 
method of intellectual prudence. Yield to the winds 
of the uppermost heavens, if you would produce any 
divine effect through speech. 

Take the most advanced of present nations, and 
how near are they to having the inner wisdom of self- 
surrender to God ? Do they possess any considerable 
amount of the genius that comes from harmony with 
the divine laws of the human spirit and of the de- 
velopment of history at large ? Only that inner wis- 
dom and that genius can give us the utmost human 
progress. The principal periods of vital reform in 
history have come from really slight touches of this 
wisdom in a few circles or individuals ; but to see 
whole nations moved by it and the world melodiously 
loyal to it would be to witness the fulfillment of a 
prayer which is universal and yet to be answered, 
that God's will may be done on earth as in heaven. 

3. The united Christian sentiment of the globe has 
power to seize by the throat and break the neck of 
any unjust international movement. 

4. As the slave-trade, piracy, and other interna- 
tional evils have been wholly or nearly abolished, so 



234 ORIENT. 

all the abuses that remain in the conduct of nations 
toward each other must be reformed. 

5. It must be proclaimed unflinchingly that even 
commerce is not to stand in the way of righteous 
judgment in the affairs of nations. [Applause.] 

Why did Great Britain recently make war with 
Egypt ? Because of commercial reasons. There was 
likelihood that Egypt would run away with the funds 
that were needed to pay certain European creditors, 
and so England and France declared war. John 
Bright resigned his position in a proud English cabi- 
net simply because he felt that commerce in Eng- 
land's relations to Egypt had throttled moral law, 
and because he believed that the moral law should 
throttle every unjust thing in commerce. [Ap- 
plause.] The time is coming when not merely states- 
men of the most eminent rank will be ready to speak 
sternly to any unscrupulous leaders of commerce ; 
the press also, and perhaps, by and by, the parlor and 
then the pulpit, will acquire a similar courage. Our 
brave men in pulpits have usually done their duty ; 
but occasionally they need to be encouraged to far 
franker attacks than they usually make upon the 
vices of the respectable portions of Christendom. 
[Applause.] It will not be greed and selfish desire 
for commercial aggrandizement that will ultimately 
control the international relations of the globe. 
Merchants did not govern the American republic 
when once the evil of slavery was vividly seen by 
the churches. Money is mighty, but not almighty. 

6. It is chiefly, to-day, the inertness, the greed, 
and occasionally the moral unscrupulousness of nom- 



INTERNATIONAL DUTIES OF CHRISTENDOM. 235 

inal Christians, under temptation of gain, which main- 
tain the worst international abases of the world. 

Make the nominal Christians real ones, and the 
principal evils of our time will vanish out of it, as 
the snow-drifts disappear under the vernal heat. As 
slavery was abolished, so a multitude of abuses yet 
notorious in the international relations of populations 
called Christian would disappear were once nominal 
Christians made aggressive ones. 

7. Commerce itself, in spite of its selfishness, and 
even on account of it, may become a chief support of 
international reform. 

8. Communication between nations is becoming so 
swift and pervasive that it must lead to contact among 
nations, and contact to conference, and conference to 
concert, and concert to cooperation, and cooperation 
to virtual moral confederation. 

What is wanted is not a union of Christian or 
even of Protestant or English-speaking nations ; but 
an alliance consistent at once with self-government 
in the different nations, and with a cosmopolitan and 
Christian internationalism in their concerted action. 

Not proposing the formal political confederation of 
Christendom, but its close moral alliance, part with 
part, throughout the whole earth, I defend a number 
of definite measures that would secure, if carried, 
what scholars have been asking for these fifty years, 
— universal peace, justice in the relations of strong 
nations with weak, and a general advance of Chris- 
tian principle throughout all the departments of in- 
ternational law. 

Let me name twelve measures required by inter- 
national morality : — 



236 ORIENT. 

1. Arbitration in place of war, in every case to 
which it can be applied ; and treaties including agree- 
ments to use arbitration before resorting to war. 

Mr. Bright, in 1849, supported Mr. Cobden when 
the latter presented a petition of 200,000 names to 
Parliament asking that arbitration be made a remedy 
for war in every case to which it is applicable. The 
petition was not granted ; its supporters were re- 
garded as fanatics. Some of the greatest philanthro- 
pists of Europe put themselves on Mr. Cobden's side, 
Victor Hugo among them ; and so, little by little, 
the ear of the world was obtained. In 1873 the 
House of Commons passed a resolution praying the 
Queen to put a provision making arbitration a remedy 
for war into every treaty she should make with for- 
eign nations. The lords never passed that measure. 
Our own House of Representatives, in 1874, passed a 
similar resolution. This last winter a distinguished 
Massachusetts senator, whom may God bless, intro- 
duced that resolution once more, and it will not al- 
ways sleep, even in our upper house. Our martyred 
President Garfield announced that arbitration was 
the settled policy of his administration. He wished 
to bring together all the nations of this continent, 
and to enter into a treaty with them to make arbitra- 
tion a remedy for war in every case to which it is ap- 
plicable. Commerce was asleep ; Commerce was count- 
ing its dollars in its tills; Commerce was bending over 
its muck-rake and forgetting the glorious rewards 
of philanthropy which are far-flashing crowns in his- 
tory long after individual or even national wealth is 
forgotten. Little Peru, in South America, called for 



INTERNATIONAL DUTIES OF CHRISTENDOM. 237 

a convention to make arbitration the rule of this 
hemisphere. It is only of late that we have begun 
to appreciate our interests in South America as mer- 
chants. Britain is in advance of us commercially in 
that part of the world so far from her, so near to us. 
It was for our interest to hold this convention ; but 
we were far too busy to attend to the matter, even 
when Garfield proposed it. What we want is that 
not merely among English - speaking nations, but 
throughout the whole globe, it should become the 
practice to make arbitration an international system, 
and thus a remedy for all wars to which arbitration 
can be applied. [Applause.] I am not a defender 
of the principle of non-resistance. There are wars 
that are just ; but, as Mr. Bright is reported to 
have said, no war since the time of William III. 
has been thoroughly justifiable, except that of the 
Northern States for the abolition of slavery and the 
preservation of our Union. [Applause.] 

2. The complete abolition of the slave-trade on the 
sea. 

You say that we have abolished it. Not we. 
Great Britain has put forth herculean efforts to 
abolish the slave-trade, and is yet engaged in that 
majestic business. Between Africa and Persia the 
slave-trade is vigorous yet. In the Indian Ocean 
slave-traders are constantly watched by British men- 
of-war. America ought to help in that chase. [Ap- 
plause.] She is too penurious to do so. Commerce 
holds her back. Why should she attend to this 
matter ? Here again we must take the Church by 
the hand a little earnestlv, and Commerce also, and 



238 OKIENT. 

awaken both to the prompt performance of this inter- 
national duty. Great Britain is really carrying out 
her antislavery principles better than we are. She 
has at this time many men engaged in suppressing 
the slave-trade. She has called on us for assistance, 
and some other nations are helping her; but, in 
spite of our general agreement in our present opin- 
ions about maritime rights, and our pride in having 
abolished slavery, we are yet behind the British Em- 
pire in this matter. 

The time will come when Christianity will demand 
that we should put an end to the slave-trade on the 
land. David Livingstone wished to have this policy 
adopted even in his time. The horrors of the inter- 
nal slave - trade in Africa are at this moment un- 
speakable. Personal contact with them, such as a 
Stanley or a Livingstone has had, shows that Africa, 
even in our time, is a shield with streams of blood 
running down to its edges. Along the slave-trails 
that lead to the eastern and northern ports of Africa, 
murders and other atrocities occur so frequently that 
it is no exaggeration, but literal fact, to say that the 
trails are blood-stained. They are marked by the 
bones of thousands who have fallen on them. The 
slaves who are shipped off in Moorish and Arabic 
vessels from the coasts of Africa are far more numer- 
ous than you dream ; and yet America sits here in 
her Bostons, her New Yorks, her Chicagos, and thinks 
herself enlightened and advanced and philanthropic, 
while Great Britain, mighty as she is, finds herself 
unable to repress this trade. 

3. The wider protection of the rights of neutrals in 
all wars. 



INTERNATIONAL DUTIES OF CHRISTENDOM. 239 

4. Common laws as to copyrights and patents. 
We steal more books from England than she does 

from us ; but she steals more patents from us than 
we do from her, and I would put the two abuses to- 
gether and reform them. 

5. Postal union facilities of all kinds. 

6. International bills of exchange. 

7. The extension of international law to the Orient, 
Africa, and all the weakest nations. 

8. Mixed courts, made up in part of judges from 
one nation and in part of judges from another, for 
the trial of international offenses by individuals. 

In China and Japan there are mixed courts now ; 
but they are full of abuses which it is the office of in- 
ternational morality to reform. 

9. An international police. 

10. A scholarly codification of international law as 
far as it now exists in a positive form, and the adop- 
tion of a brief summary code by the advanced nations. 

Of course no nation could be held responsible to 
such a code until it should have adopted it for itself. 
Let the eight principal powers of the Occident — 
England, Germany, Austria, Russia, Italy, France, 
Spain, and the United States — adopt such a code, 
and it would make its own way, ultimately, through 
the world. Forty-six nations have agreed to define 
maritime rights in certain ways ; sixteen nations are 
united now in a postal union. 

11. A high court of arbitration in case of disputes 
between two nations. 

12. An annual conference of nations^ with a view 
to facilitate intercourse, prevent abuses, and secure 
international peace. 



240 OEIENT. 

When the Panama Canal is cut, why should the 
United States and England not guarantee its military 
neutrality ? All wars should be kept out of it and 
the Suez Canal, and out of the seas near either end 
of each. The interests of neutrals in modern Euro- 
pean wars have become so important that the great 
powers have often guaranteed the military neutrality 
of Belgium, the Rhine, and Switzerland. In Aus- 
tralia I heard statesmen saying that after the Pan- 
ama Canal is cut, the time will come when Cobden's 
doctrine will look practical — that the great highways 
of commerce on the chief oceans should have their 
neutrality guaranteed by the leading powers of Chris- 
tendom. 

The time is coming when to the English-speaking 
nations of the world and the self-reformed hermit 
nations of Asia, the Pacific Ocean will be only what 
the Mediterranean was to the Roman Empire. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, speaking at St. Helena of the 
Peace of Amiens, said: " I had a project for general 
peace by drawing all the powers to an immense re- 
duction of their standing armies. And then, perhaps, 
as intelligence became universally diffused, one might 
be permitted to dream of the application to the great 
European family of an institution like the American 
Congress, or that of the Amphictyon in Greece, and 
then what a perspective before us of greatness, of 
happiness, of prosperity ; what a grand and magnif- 
icent spectacle ! " 

Immanuel Kant, in 1795, proposed, in the interests 
of universal peace, a plan of international action con- 
sisting of these details : (1.) No state to be merged 



INTERNATIONAL DUTIES OF CHRISTENDOM. 241 

in another by exchange, or gift, or force. (2.) Ulti- 
mate abolition of standing armies. (3.) No state 
debts with reference to external politics. (4.) No 
state to interfere by force in the affairs of another. 
(5.) Every state to have a republican constitution, 
or one in which all the citizens share in making laws 
and deciding on questions of peace and war. (6.) In- 
ternational law to be based on a confederation of free 
states. (7.) A citizenship of the world limited to 
the notion of the free access of all men to and their 
residence in any state upon the earth's surface. 
(8.) An international conference at stated inter- 
vals. (See Kant's works, ed. Leipzig, 1838, pp. 
411-466.) 

Bentham, in 1789, advocated a similar plan. He 
was willing that a fixed contingent should be fur- 
nished by the several states for the purpose of en- 
forcing the decrees of an international court ; but he 
thought that public opinion and the progress of a 
free press would prevent the necessity of such an 
extreme measure. 

David Dudley Field, of New York, has written 
the most searching and suggestive volume yet pub- 
lished on a proposed International Code. In case 
of the disagreement of any two nations, parties to an 
adopted code, he would have them seek a settlement 
through the advice of a Joint High Commission, of 
their own appointment. If its advice is not taken, 
he would have a High Tribunal of Arbitration ap- 
pointed to give a final decision. His suggestions as 
to how this tribunal should be chosen are drawn up 
with great sagacity, and yet, no doubt, would need to 

16 



242 ORIENT. 

be modified by experience. On the supreme matter 
of infractions of the rule of loyalty to the adopted 
code, his proposal is : "If any party hereto shall be- 
gin a war in violation of the provisions of this code 
for the preservation of peace, the other parties bind 
themselves to resist the offending nation by force." 
(Field's " International Code," second edition, 1876, 
p. 371.) 

International reform, you say, is a mere kite flown 
in the winds of philanthropic discussion, and is useful 
only as a toy. Your Sumner was accustomed to fly 
it, however, and so was your Longfellow : — 

" Down the dark future, through long generations, 
War's echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease ; 
And, like a bell with solemn, sweet vibrations, 
I hear once more the voice of Christ say: 'Peace.' " 

Longfellow : The Arsenal at Springfield. 

Charles Sumner, through his whole career, was a 
defender of the principles on which scholars are en- 
deavoring to build universal peace. He believed in 
war, indeed, such as our Northern States fought to 
abolish slavery and maintain the Union ; but his aim 
was to spread the white robe of peace around the 
whole earth. This same kite has been flown by 
John Bright, by Cobden, by Immanuel Kant, by 
Bentham, by President Woolsey, by David Dudley 
Field. When the suspension bridge was built at 
Niagara, the first thing done was to send a boy's 
kite over the chasm. That kite carried a silken 
cord across the roaring abysses beneath it ; and that 
cord drew after it wires, and the wires cables, and 
the cables a bridge which now bears the thunder of 



INTERNATIONAL DUTIES OF CHRISTENDOM. 243 

traffic between two empires. Just so this thought of 
a league of advanced populations ; this idea that it is 
the duty of Christendom to maintain international 
morality, and thus to lay the basis for reform of 
positive international law ; this scheme of an Anglo- 
American alliance ; this theory that it is possible and 
desirable to bring all enlightened nations together in 
a cosmopolitan moral confederation, may be a kite 
flown in the winds of discussion ; but if you fly it 
often enough and long enough on both sides of the 
Atlantic and Pacific, and both north and south of 
the Equator, it may ultimately carry over the roaring 
abysses of international prejudice a silken cord of 
Christian amity ; and that cord may draw after it 
wires and cables, and by and by a bridge, which will 
bear the weight of the heaviest international reforms, 
and uphold at last, please God, the feet of the White 
Christ Himself, as He walks into the dawn of the 
millennial day. [Applause.] 



LECTURE VI. 

AUSTRALIA, THE PACIFIC OCEAN, AND INTERNA- 
TIONAL REFORM. 

One morning in the Chinese Sea you wake to find 
yourself opposite the mouth of the Yang Tse Kiang 
River, which has but three superiors in point of 
length in the whole world, — the Nile, the Missis- 
sippi, and the Amazon. Two hundred miles from 
the coast this giant stream colors the ocean yellow. 
As you stand on your ship's deck, on one edge of the 
river at its mouth, and look with a glass across its 
flashing amber and gold in the sunrise, you cannot 
see the opposite shore. It flows through the most 
populous river valley of the globe. Ocean steamers 
ascend it to a point seven hundred miles from its 
mouth. It is the commercial highway of China. In 
the multitudinousness of the human lives connected 
with its banks, it far surpasses at present the Ama- 
zon, the Nile, or even the Mississippi, You land at 
Shanghai, and give a course of lectures there, — a 
city in a level plain, stately mercantile palaces, Brit- 
ish, French, German, American, fronting the curve 
of the small but crowded river that flows through it. 
The highest hill in the city or vicinity is said to be 
the swelling arch of a certain bridge over this stream, 
so completely flat is the whole country in this portion 
of China. 



AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 245 

From Shanghai you drift down the gray and green 
and yellow coast to Foochow, in order to catch a tea 
ship to Australia. On the Min River you find your- 
self in a mountainous region, sublimer than the Dan- 
ube flows through anywhere except at the Iron Gates. 
You pass your last night in Asia in a stately man- 
sion on the shore of a river more beautiful than the 
Rhine, and in a chamber with an outlook superior 
in most physical respects to that from the castle at 
Heidelberg. The city of Foochow is the port of a 
vast tea region ; and it is from that portion of the 
Asiatic coast that you take your departure into the 
Tropics. 

Your last view of Asia you obtain as you lose sight 
of the bold scenery on the river near Foochow. A 
loud thunderstorm is lashing the barley terraces, the 
tea plantations, the pine forests, and the grand, 
templed hills, as you lift up your right hand and 
say, "May God hasten the regeneration of Asia!" 
and so, with a tumult of emotion, both of sadness 
and of hope, you turn your face, probably forever, 
from the most thickly peopled continent of the world. 

Three hundred miles of steaming sea, heavy clouds, 
and incessant tropical showers ; then a zone of calms, 
comparatively clear sky, and little rain ; then a second 
long stretch of steaming sea, low, black clouds, and 
numberless vigorous showers — such is the order of 
your experience in crossing the mystic line which 
separates the northern from the southern half of our 
wheeling globe. Your decks are drenched at sunrise 
by an unusually heavy downpour, in which the rain 
seems to fall in sheets and streams, rather than in 



246 OEIEXT. 

drops. This clears up the sweltering heavens, and 
soon you shoot into a completely quiet ocean, and 
move on for several days under a most peaceful, azure 
sky. The zone of calms, as Coleridge's Ancient Mar- 
iner says, is a terror only to sailing vessels, and these 
lie around you in stately torpor ; but the engines of 
your steamer rejoice in the quietude of the winds. 

Day by day the sun rises and sinks, and the stars 
and the crescent moon come out with indescribable 
majesty and beauty. Twelve showers at one mo- 
ment; walk around the rim of the sky over the dis- 
tant purple of the tropical ocean. The waves, es- 
pecially near noon, are of a deep, crystalline blue, 
which you never saw surpassed in intensity of color 
even in the Mediterranean. About ten o' clock one 
Monday morning, the sun shining with vigor, but not 
fiercely, on a steel-gray and violet sea, in which no 
land is in sight, you are told by the ship's officers 
that you are crossing the Equator. There is no 
mark on sea or sky ; but there is nevertheless above 
you and beneath you a geographical reality, of which 
the effects are visible through all the zones. Here 
the trade-winds rise, and to this region they return. 
Here begins the mighty system of currents of air, 
flowing from the Equator to the Poles and back 
again. Your thoughts dart around the world on 
the track of the Equator ; hang above Borneo and 
Sumatra, the Indian Ocean, the great African lakes, 
the sources of the Nile, the Atlantic, the Amazon, 
the Andes, and look outward to the tropical lines of 
Cancer and Capricorn, and beyond them to the two 
silent, snow-capped Poles, and beyond these to Him 



AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 247 

who upholds them. Here, first, as you dip into the 
Southern Hemisphere, and find the sun north of you 
at noon, you begin to feel the sphericity and the com- 
parative insignificance of the size of our globe. 

In a voyage across the central zone of the earth, 
it is in the nights that the chief sublimities of the 
tropics step forth. Ursa Major and the Southern 
Cross stand over against each other at equal heights, 
and converse with each other across the whole breadth 
of the world, and gaze on land and sea with looks of 
benediction, and on each other with harmonious in- 
terblending of light and movement, and upon infinite 
space around them, and upon the unspeakable Omni- 
presence in it, with an awe and worship which strike 
you dumb for many an hour. The Southern Pole is 
dark. There is no Southern Polar star visible to 
the naked eye. A large region around the Southern 
Pole is comparatively ray less. But at about the 
same distance from the Southern Polar point that 
Ursa Major lies from the Northern hangs the South- 
ern Cross, a group four or five times as large as the 
Pleiades, and containing one star of the first magni- 
tude, two of the second, and one of the third. The 
largest star is at the foot of the Cross, the next largest 
at the top, and the two point to the Southern Pole. 
Above the Cross five stars, two of them of the first 
magnitude, form a canopy as if of an archangel's 
hand, brooding above the sacred symbol. In the 
two dark places which resemble key-holes in the 
sky, and which sailors call the coal-sacks, you seem 
to be looking into regions to which is reserved the 
blackness of darkness forever. The Magellanic clouds 



248 ORIENT. 

appear like detached portions of the Milky Way. 
The lesser cloud has been found to contain 200 single 
stars, 37 nebulas, and 7 star clusters. In the larger 
cloud there have been counted 582 single stars, 291 
nebulas, and 46 sun clusters. The scale of the uni- 
verse slowly reveals itself to you in many nights of 
solitude at sea. The apparent distance between the 
large and the small star which lie so close to each 
other at the bend of the handle of the Great Dipper 
is five hundred times what the whole breadth of the 
earth's orbit would appear to be if seen from the 
nearest fixed star. 

" The fires that arch this dusky dot, 
Yon myriad worlded way, 
The vast sun-clusters' gathered blaze, 

World-isles in lonely skies, 
Whole heavens within themselves, amaze 
Our brief humanities." 

Tennysou. 

You glide smoothly through the East Indian Archi- 
pelago ; you see the black, naked natives among 
their straw huts and under the cocoanut palms on 
shore. All along the sandy beaches, the heavy tim- 
ber, filled with a tropical tangle of vine and mosses, 
almost dips into the leaping waves. Uncouth canoes 
ply among the coral reefs. You see the groves in 
which are to be found the orang-outang and the 
birds of paradise. 

Australia at last rises from beneath the Southern 
Sea. It is a gray, windy June morning ; and the tem- 
perature and clouds of a northern November come 
whistling up from the ice-fields of the South Pole. 
You sit in your ocean-chair, in your ulster, and write 



AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 249 

with a stiff hand in the frosty air. Bold, blue 
mountains, with many purple bays and green-wooded 
headlands, form the coast on which you look across 
five or seven miles of angry, foaming, autumnal sea. 

As you write at the foot of the mast, the blue sky 
begins to smile above the brown and purple shores. 
The sociable gulls flock above the wake of your ship. 
The stormy petrels skim the wrinkled waves. Now 
and then shoals of porpoises shoot with easy grace 
from the green, huge, watery hills and slide down 
them, half revealed and half concealed among the 
azure currents and silver foam-bells. 

God willing, an Anglo-American alliance will yet 
encircle the world ! You are in Australia partly for 
the purpose of studying what the prospects are for 
the moral federation of the English-speaking popula- 
tion of the globe. 

Happy valleys, like that of Rasselas, lie under the 
cool sunlight as you gaze westward on Australia 
from your ship, which coasts southward now, along 
gigantie- coral reefs. Forests of gray gum-trees, 
which shed their outer bark, but not their foliage, 
rustle in the fastnesses, where yet roam the emu and 
the kangaroo. The silver shafts of the mellow after- 
noon suns fall in benediction on hedgeless pastures 
and bleating flocks. Pleiades hangs over the North- 
ern Sydney head as your ship, at five o'clock on the 
morning of your nineteenth day from Foochow, turns 
into the famous Sydney Bay, a harbor of whose 
beauty you have read much, but which exceeds, as 
does the noble and proud young city on its shores, 
your high expectations. 



250 ORIENT. 

What are the organizing dates of Australian his- 
tory ? 1606, the island discovered by the Dutch ; 
1770, East Coast discovered by Captain Cook ; 1788, 
Sydney founded; 1837, Melbourne founded; 1851, 
gold discovered in Victoria ; 1853, transportation of 
convicts to Australia forbidden. Around these six 
points crystallize Australian years thus far. 

It has pleased Almighty Providence to bring into 
existence in Australia the most brilliant group of 
cities in the Southern Hemisphere. Melbourne, Syd- 
ney, Adelaide, are incomparably the most important 
municipalities south of the Equator. Brazil, with its 
ten millions of people, has a larger population than 
Australia ; but far more than half of them belong to 
a servile class, or to one which was lately in bondage. 
There is no slavery in Australia, thank God, and not 
likely to be. Although some abuses in the labor 
trade have occurred in the northern parts of Queens- 
land, you see in the faces of your superb audiences 
at Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Brisbane, the 
thunderbolts that will ultimately put an end to the 
unrighteousness of the coolie traffic in Australia. 
You find in the three or four millions of its present 
population the pilgrim fathers and mothers of the fu- 
ture of Australasia. Here are as many people as 
the United States had when they broke off from the 
British Empire. 

What is the attitude of this mass of human be- 
ings toward great questions of religion and politics ? 
What are the promises and what the perils of the 
religious future of Australasia ? 

Among the promises, notice : — 



AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 251 

1. The quantity of the prospective population — 
100,000,000, at least. There is room in Australia 
and the islands near it for 200,000,000 of people. 
Look at the map and observe that Australia, al- 
though it could be buried in the United States, 
would leave very little extra space. Excluding 
Alaska, we have just over, while Australia has just 
under, 3,000,000 square miles of soil. The interior 
of Australia is by no means as nearly a desert as our 
older geographies led us to suppose. If you will dig 
artesian wells for your flocks, you can drive them 
from one end to the other of the continent, and sup- 
port them all the while from the natural pasturage. 
One day you are conversing in the beautiful city of 
Adelaide with a Scottish gentleman, prominent in 
politics and education and a great holder of prop- 
erty in the interior of Australia. You mention to 
him the Australian desert. " Why," he says, " I 
am soon to send 3,000 cattle to the very country of 
which you are speaking, and they will stay there 
twelve months." With proper reservoirs for the 
rain and with artesian wells, the interior of Aus- 
tralia can be made vastly efficient in multiplying the 
wealth of the country in flocks and in herds. You 
remember, too, what gold mines are in Australia ; 
and how, to this hour, the fear of exhausting them 
is a thing that belongs to the next century. Some 
are exhausted, or appear to be ; but as you visit Bal- 
larat and Sandhurst, you find the industrial attitude 
and sentiment among the miners and great specula- 
tors reminding you of some of the very best days of 
our Californian gold fever. 



252 ORIENT. 

2. The quality of the population, — English and 
Scotch, and chiefly Protestant. 

Thank Heaven that the Southern lands are not 
likely to. be settled by Asiatics, but by the foremost 
Western peoples ! No doubt there is a great future 
before Japan and China ; but it is fortunate that 
Australia is not to be indebted to them for more 
than a fragment of its population. It is quality 
that makes nations great. The pioneers of Austra- 
lian civilization are picked men. The vast breadth 
of ocean which separates this continental island from 
Great Britain and Europe acts as a protective tariff 
with regard to the things of character. It appalls 
drones. Second-rate men have rarely pluck enough 
to go across this breadth of sea. 

3. Its inheritance of high ideals and approved in- 
stitutions in education, politics, and church life. 

4. Its achievement up to the present time in edu- 
cation, politics, and religion. 

My conviction is strong that Australia is more 
thoroughly filled with the best influences of British 
civilization than our Pacific slope is with the best of 
American. Australia has herself done better things 
for her churches and her schools than our Pacific 
slope has yet done for its own. 

5. The freedom of the population from precedent, 
and its inclination and opportunity to choose the 
newest and best fashions in everything. 

6. Its broad suffrage, and the consequent political 
necessity that it should make education and religious 
training general. 

7. Its separation of church and state, and the con- 



AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 253 

sequent necessity that the churches should depend on 
self-help, and not on state help ; the unity, purity, 
and aggressiveness this necessity will foster. 

8. Its close moral and educational, as well as polit- 
ical connection with England and Scotland. 

9. Its distance from corrupting neighbors and the 
usual paths of wars. 

10. Its prospective political confederation. 

11. Its mobility of ranks in society, and the conse- 
quent aspiration of the masses for culture. 

12. Its central position and immense opportunity 
for usefulness in Japan, China, and India. 

You think it strange that intercolonial tariffs 
should be kept up between the Australasian colo- 
nies, and so do the best men of those colonies them- 
selves. The presence of a little common danger — 
say the appearance of a couple of Russian privateers 
off the Australian coast — would precipitate the con- 
federation of these rival provinces. They now tax 
each other. They are as proud of their separateness 
as in twenty-five or fifty years they may be of their 
union. 

Each leading city expects to be the capital of the 
confederation. There are at least three cities that 
are prominent candidates for this position, — Syd- 
ney, Melbourne, and Adelaide ; and admirable cities 
they are, either of them worthy of being the capital 
of a great nation. Sydney, the first one you visit, — 
Sydney, with its hundred bays ; Sydney, possessed of 
the finest harbor in the Southern Hemisphere, unless 
it be that of Rio ; Sydney, which is a dream of beauty 
in its position by land and sea, — is a royal child, not 



254 ORIENT. 

unworthy of its parentage in stalwart emigrant pop- 
ulations from England. 

There was once a Botany Bay near Sydney ; but 
if you go to Australia and speak of the population 
there as being descended from convicts, your mouth 
is soon closed, not by a haughty reply without fact 
behind it, but by actual evidence. It is true that 
convict families have had successors in Australia ; 
but the whole system of the transportation of convicts 
became a gehenna. Australia herself was one of the 
foremost powers in that combination of forces which, 
caused its abolition. Since 1853 this transportation 
has ceased, and that date now is a long way off. 

The population has increased faster, in many por- 
tions of Australia, than in any part of our Amer- 
ican Union during the last twenty years. The 
result is that the present atmosphere of society in 
Sydney reminds you of that of London. The pres- 
ent atmosphere of Adelaide reminds you of Edin- 
burgh. Melbourne can receive no higher compli- 
ment from your present speaker than the assertion 
that she is the most like Boston of any city he has 
visited on a tour around the world. Melbourne is 
aggressive, incisive, almost breathless in her activ- 
ity — the most American of all the Australian cities. 
Sydney would not like this praise of Melbourne, and 
Melbourne would not like my praise of Sydney ; and 
yet, after all, their rivalry is more good-humored 
banter than serious commercial collision. There are, 
no doubt, some important conflicts of interests be- 
tween the two ; but they will drift, within fifty, or 
at most a hundred years, as I think, into the most 
peaceful confederation. 



AUSTKALIA AND THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 255 

As one nation, Australians will feel that their 
responsibilities are continental. Australasia, first or 
last, will naturally draw into the circle of its polit- 
ical control most of the islands south of the Equator. 
Confederation will strengthen all the excellent ten- 
dencies of the country, and enhance the value of the 
inheritance and achievement of the population — its 
freedom, universal suffrage, high education, immense 
industrial opportunity, political and moral example, 
and separation of church and state. 

In Australasia, as I believe, are to originate impor- 
tant forces facilitating reform throughout the East. 
From the centre of a population of 100,000,000 un- 
der the Southern Cross will be shot javelins of Chris- 
tianity and of lofty political and educational influ- 
ences into the very heart of Japan, India, and China, 
and even of the Dark Continent itself. 

Notice next a list of the perils in the religious 
future of these colonies under the Southern Cross : — 

1. The concentration of its population in cities, 
and the comparative smallness of the rural popu- 
lation. 

2. The necessity of managing cities under univer- 
sal suffrage and party government. 

3. The absence of an aristocracy and a leisured 
class, to set a high standard in manners and social 
fashions. 

4. The formation of new classes in society, espe- 
cially of a lawless and explosive lower class, a push- 
ing middle class, and an overworked upper class. 

5. The crude, transitional state of the democratic 
thought of the masses in our day. 



256 OKIENT. 

6. The rising to power of a generation that has not 
seen England or Scotland. 

7. The opportunity to gain wealth swiftly, and 
hence haste to be rich. 

8. Passion for amusement and luxury. 

9. Excessive secularism, arising from the complete 
abolition of church and state in a population not ac- 
customed to the exclusive use of the voluntary system 
in church affairs. 

10. Sectarian rivalry from the same cause. 

11. Bondage of pulpit to pews under the voluntary 
system. 

12. Climate, increasing the danger of the charac- 
teristic vices, and weakening the characteristic virtues 
of the British people, — energy and purity suffering 
always some diminution in sub-tropical regions. 

After all, I regard this climatic influence as by no 
means the least of the perils of the northern Austra- 
lian populations. Britons in Queensland are in the 
climate of Spain and Algiers. Tasmania is like 
England in her climate. New Zealand resembles 
portions of the mother island, but the most of Aus- 
tralia lies in a sub-tropical climate ; and already, in 
the younger population, you begin to find developed 
some of the fringes of the vices of Spain and Italy, 
and of the whole region of the sub - tropical world. 
Such intemperance as Britons hardly survive at home 
is swiftly fatal in Australia. Let the populations 
under the Southern Cross be delivered from the vices 
peculiar to highly heated climates ; let Christianity 
purify civilization there in such a manner that it may 
shine with beams as keen as those of any northern 



AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 257 

constellation ; and there will not be on the face of 
the globe in one hundred years — except probably in 
the American Republic — a more influential gather- 
ing of English-speaking people than in Australasia at 
large. 

Australia is the most Americanized portion of the 
British Empire. It is so vast that in the few months 
which you spend in it, in meeting crowded lecture 
appointments, you cannot see half of it. But Aus- 
tralia concentrates its population in large towns. In 
fifteen cities of Australia and Tasmania in which you 
lecture, you find more than half the population. The 
towns cling to the river-courses and the best sea-ports. 
Australia is, and for ages is likely to be, a crescent 
of population. The tips of it are at Port Darwin in 
the north, and at Adelaide in the south. The chief 
thickness of it is at Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne. 
This crescent will enlarge until, perhaps, there may 
be in it, in Australia alone, an hundred millions of 
people. Near the crescent will burn two stars of 
the first magnitude — Tasmania and New Zealand. 
Minor stars, like the Fijis and other islands under 
British control, will surround this group, and so the 
whole constellation will float through the azure of 
history. 

British Imperial Federation is favored by the best 
minds in Australia. Victoria is the determined ad- 
vocate of Australian confederation. New South 
Wales, as yet, has treated this great proposal with 
much coolness. Several of her statesmen fear that 
local confederation might lead to a movement for 
Australasian independence, and so defeat or delay 

17 



258 OKIENT. 

Imperial Federation. It is to be devoutly hoped that 
such wisdom will preside over the political, educa- 
tional, and religious counsels of the British Empire 
that the mother islands and Australasia may belong 
to one political organization as long as Ursa Major 
and the Southern Cross belong to one sky ! 

Pausing only for a single lecture at beautiful Auck- 
land, in green New Zealand, you move northward, 
through the placid Pacific and its clustered islands, 
its tropical showers, its refreshing trade- winds, and 
beneath its amazing night skies, in which a vast 
comet blazes among the southern constellations. At 
last the shadows once more begin to fall southward 
at noon. 

On a dazzling day, full of peace on sea and land, 
the Sandwich Islands lift themselves from the steel- 
blue and violet seas. You meet a chief justice, sev- 
eral professors and missionaries, see the king, gather 
a collection of curiosities and state documents, deliver 
a lecture, and return to your steamer through the 
tropical dusk, all inside of five hours. 

You are leaving at Honolulu the last land that you 
are to visit before you see once more America, your 
own. There is a crowd on the wharf, partly of 
Americans, but chiefly of natives ; and, as your ma- 
jestic steamer drops off shore into the scented dark, 
you hear many voices call out " Aloha," which is the 
Hawaiian for " Farewell, and God bless you." You 
have studied these islands from afar, and understand 
very well that this call is in some sense the wail of a 
race about to be exterminated. Morituri salutamus, — 
" We who are about to die salute you." There is 



AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 259 

endless pathos in the tender intonation of the final 
courteous wish of the natives as you drift from their 
shore. You find summed up in that wail your whole 
experience of listening to the innermost heart of hu- 
manity. In that wail you hear the millions of India 
utter their desire for progress, the millions of China 
call out for a better future, Japan express herself 
with emphasis on the side of advanced civilization, 
the islands of all the seas lift up their prayer to 
Almighty God for regeneration. 

As the Southern Cross sinks from view below the 
rim of the sea, and your tour of the world begins to 
approach completion, you feel, for more than an hour 
or a day, like turning back upon your course and vis- 
iting again every people that you have found strug- 
gling toward the light. Your heart is on the Thames 
and the Rhine, indeed ; it is on the Tiber and the 
Ilissus ; but you find your enthusiasms for classical 
lands overborne by the tides of new Oriental and 
Southern enthusiasms. Your heart is on the Ganges 
and on the Yang Tse Kiang ; it is on the slopes of Fuji- 
Yama and the Himalayas ; it is on the shores of Aus- 
tralia and in the islands of the Pacific; it is here in 
the Hawaiian group at the foot of Mauna Loa. You 
feel almost ready to make a resolve to go back around 
the globe before you die, if God will, and this time 
toward the setting sun, and meet once more all the 
nations that the English speech can reach. You lean 
in the midnight against the mast of your ship, and 
look upward to the familiar constellations which now 
begin to rise out of the north. Tbey are tremor less 
in spite of the tossing of all beneath you, and your 



260 ORIENT. 

heart is as fixed as they, never, on land or sea, to be 
disloyal to international duties. America is dear to 
you as never before. The first sight of it, as you 
strain }^our lonely and thirsty eyes eastward, awakens 
unspeakable emotion. You have been a pilgrim long. 
On the sunrise of your twenty-fifth day from Syd- 
ney, the blue heights of the Coast Range, above the 
dim mists that shroud the Farallone Islands and the 
Golden Gate, greet you from your own skies. El 
Capitan seems near. Whether you have any friends 
left to you in your native land, you do not know. 
You make no predictions, no promises ; but you are 
resolved that, whatever may betide, you will do your 
utmost while you live to lift your own nation to a 
sense of cosmopolitan obligations. 

Nowhere on the globe is there a nation which has 
such influence beyond its own borders as our own. 
Great Britain has more political, but the United 
States more moral, influence than any other nation. 
It is because of the advance of education and democ- 
racy ; it is because of the progress of Christianity, 
that at the bottom of the wail of every struggling 
people you find American aspirations. In Switzer- 
land I heard the news of the death of Garfield, and 
all the Alps seemed quivering in sympathy with our 
national bereavement. In Ceylon I heard of the 
death of Longfellow, and all the tropical forests 
seemed trembling in pain at our grief. In the Inland 
Sea of Japan I heard of the death of Emerson, and 
all the sacred groves seemed uttering their sympathy 
with our loss. Wherever on the earth I have put my 
ear upon the breast of the nations and listened, not to 



AUSTRALIA AND THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 261 

what the people are ready to say publicly in the face 
of tyranny, but to what they say at firesides and in 
their secret thoughts, I have always heard the echo 
of President Lincoln's prayer, that governments of 
the people, for the people, and by the people, may not 
perish from the earth. There is another prayer ut- 
tered by One whose pierced palms are moulding the 
ages into the pattern which He loves — a prayer that 
we all may be one. You land in America resolved 
to make that prayer your own while life lasts. You 
return hoping that those pierced palms which have 
lifted heathenism off its hinges and turned into new 
channels the dolorous and accursed ages, may deci- 
sively mould you and your nation and all the earth 
until the ideal of the Heart behind them becomes 
that of the entire family of man. Your supreme wish 
is to draw the whole globe into God's bosom so 
closely that the sound of His pulses may become the 
marching song of all the ages. 

" Ring, bells, in unreared steeples, 
The joy of unborn peoples ; 
Sound, trumpets, far off blown ; 
Your triumph is our own." 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX I. 



THE TAJ MAHAL. 

Bishop Heber has described the Taj Mahal as a 
dream in marble, designed by Titans and finished by 
jewelers. Early in the morning, before the sun is 
up, the dazzlingly white form of this marvelous struc- 
ture, as seen from the plains around Agra, is said to 
appear light blue. As the sun rises, it takes a rose- 
ate hue from the glowing East. When a storm is 
impending, and dark purple clouds fill the sky, it 
has a delicately soft violet color. The most striking 
effect is produced by moonlight, in which its domes 
are changed to silver, and seem to float through space 
as an aerial vision. 

It was my fortune to see the Taj Mahal first at sun- 
rise. On a crystalline morning, as our train glided 
along the palm - clad banks of the turbid Jumna, 
through brown, level fields, on looking up from the 
fascinating page of history which I was reading, I 
saw, unexpectedly and at no great distance, the won- 
derfully graceful domes and minarets of the Taj in 
the fresh gardens around it, on the southern border 
of the sacred affluent of the Ganges. Symmetry, dig- 
nity, stateliness, but not massiveness, were the chief 



266 APPENDIX. 

characteristics of the architecture as viewed from a 
distance. The domes were gleaming silver bubbles 
at the edge of the sky, themselves almost as trans- 
parent in appearance as the azure itself. Aspiration 
and a certain devoutness were expressed by the pure 
white of the towering pinnacles ; but the flame of 
the building by no means rose to the sky as prayer- 
fully and overawingly as that of a Gothic cathedral. 
The Taj, however, is not a temple, but a tomb. It 
was built to be a resplendent and stately memorial of 
domestic affection rather than a public shrine of re- 
ligious devotion. Shah Jehan erected the Taj Mahal 
as a memorial of a beloved wife, Banoo Begum. He 
is himself buried in it, at her side. It is to be judged 
by the effectiveness with which its architecture 
achieves its own predetermined and peculiar pur- 
poses. To compare the Taj with Milan Cathedral or 
with York Minster, and condemn it, because it is less 
religiously impressive than they are, is unfair, for it 
is not a building of parallel aims. For a similar rea- 
son it cannot be justly contrasted with the Parthe- 
non. The solace of bereavement is the hope of im- 
mortality, and so the Taj is naturally enough covered 
with sacred texts inlaid in precious stones, and in- 
tended to lift the thoughts of all observers to a world 
to come ; but no religious services are held in the 
building. It is a spot intended not for public and 
congregated worship, but for private grief and secret 
prayer. If public worship is to be performed on the 
grounds of the Taj, the place for it is in one of the 
two mosques which face the central building. This 
itself is consecrated exclusively to the memory of the 



THE TAJ MAHAL. 267 

dead, and to the sacred sorrows, meditations, and de- 
votions of mourners. 

The Great Moghul Emperor Akbar, fourth in de- 
scent from Tamerlane, was a contemporary of Shake- 
speare and Queen Elizabeth. In building the tomb 
of his father, Humayun, at Delhi, he set the architec- 
tural example which his grandson, Shah Jehan, af- 
terward copied in the Taj. The magnificent tomb of 
Humayun is yet standing at Delhi. It is one hun- 
dred years older than the Taj, but is of almost ex- 
actly parallel design. It is constructed of reddish 
stone, while the Taj is of pure white marble. It has 
little ornamentation, while the Taj has much. It 
has no minarets at its corners, while the Taj has 
four. In nearly every other point the resemblance 
between it and the more famous building is so start- 
lingly close that the substantial parts of the design 
of the Taj Mahal must be held to be less the work 
of Shah Jehan than of Akbar. He gathered at his 
court representatives of all the best culture known to 
him. Nominally a Mohammedan, Akbar, in theology, 
philosophy, and art, was distinctively and sometimes 
defiantly an eclectic. 

It is conceded by all reputable historians of the 
Moghul Empire that Byzantine and Florentine ar- 
tists were in the employment of Shah Jehan. Man- 
rique, a Spanish monk of the Augustinian order, who 
was in Agra in 1641, attributes the design of the Taj 
Mahal to a Venetian, by name Geronimo Verroraeo. 
After his death, the work is believed to have been 
made over to a Byzantine Turk. Austin, a French 
artist, is said to have been consulted as to the orna- 



268 APPENDIX. 

mentation before it was completed. His portrait in 
pietra dura was once to be seen at the back of the 
throne in Shah Jehan's palace, in the fort of New 
Delhi. He is mentioned by Bernier and Tavernier. 
Florentine work in pietra dura dates from about 1570. 
Nevertheless, as a glance at the building will show, 
the general design of the Taj, and even of its orna- 
mentation in mosaic, is not Italian, not French, not 
Hindu, but the purest Saracenic. The truth seems 
to be that in some of the details of the ornamentation 
foreign artists were employed ; but that all the chief 
parts of the plan, found as they are in the tomb of 
Humayun, which was erected in 1556, are to be at- 
tributed to Saracenic art. 

The Taj Mahal is a modern building, of a date 
not more remote than the colonization of Boston or 
the landing on Plymouth Rock. Inscriptions over its 
windows and gateways state that it was finished in 
1648. It is said to have been begun in 1630, and to 
have employed the compulsory labor of 20,000 men 
for seventeen years. 

At two o'clock in a cool, bright afternoon, I drove 
with my wife to the Taj, and we spent there five 
hours, ending with the sunset and moonlight, and al- 
lowed the architecture and the gardens to exert upon 
us their full allurement. Next day, after visits to 
Akbar's tomb and Shah Jehan's Pearl Mosque, we 
were again at the Taj Mahal in the afternoon and 
moonlight for many hours, which passed as if in a 
kind of trance. 

The grounds of the enclosure around the Taj are 
1,860 feet long by more than 1,000 wide, with the 



THE TAJ MAHAL. 269 

narrow end next the Jumna, which here runs in a 
beautiful curve from west to east. They are sur- 
rounded by a massive wall, fifteen feet high, and 
filled with abundant and choice trees and flowers. 
The roses of the Taj gardens are celebrated through- 
out India for their size, colors, fragrance, and variety. 
The south end of the grounds contains a lofty and 
elaborate gateway of red stone, with white marble 
trimmings, and is flanked by a wall, with many pil- 
lared recesses and cusped arches on both the outer 
and inner sides. Entering through this stately por- 
tal, itself a noble monument of Saracenic art, the ob- 
server sees the white marble front of the Taj, about 
1,500 feet from him, shut in by the luxuriant foliage 
of the gardens, and usually screened by the spray of 
a straight line of fifty or more fountains, throwing 
up each a single jet, some fifteen feet high. 

As we entered, the fountains were not playing ; 
but the quiet water, in the long, straight tank in 
which they stood, reflected beautifully a portion of 
the Taj. My feeling is that it would be an improve- 
ment to place between the southern gate and the Taj 
a broad pool, wide enough to mirror all its domes and 
minarets, and thus double the impressiveness of the 
vision. The fountains might be arranged much more 
gracefully around the marble edges of such a pool than 
in a straight line in a tank, as they now stand. 

We walked down the gardens at the side of the 
fountains, and soon found ourselves on the lowermost 
platform of the Taj, at the north end of the grounds. 
This is only four feet above the level of the gardens, 
but there rises from it a central platform of white 



270 APPENDIX. 

marble, 313 feet square and 18 high. On this the 
Taj is erected, a rectangular building, 187 feet in 
depth and breadth, but with its corners cut off, so 
that the whole forms an eight-sided ground plan. 
The central dome, 50 feet in diameter, rises with its 
finials 243 feet. Four smaller domes surround it. 
At each corner of the great platform, and wholly de- 
tached from the central building, there stands a min- 
aret 137 feet high. 

Everything, from the base of the great central plat- 
form upward, is of pure white marble. On the right 
hand and the left, however, at a distance of perhaps 
fifty yards, stand two subsidiary structures of red 
stone, each facing the Taj, and ornamented with 
white marble and with domes of the same material. 
These are mosques ; but only one of them faces to- 
ward Mecca, and only this is used for religious pur- 
poses. The other is called the False Mosque, and 
was added to balance the true one, so as to preserve 
the symmetry of the architectural group. 

Ascending the great marble platform, we advanced 
across it to the dazzlingly white side of the Taj, and 
entered the building through its very lofty portal, 
which impressed us by the purity of its material, the 
symmetry of its design, and the serious texts written 
in bold mosaic around its margins. On the exterior 
the Taj has texts of the Koran worked with black 
marble into the white marble as borders for its gigan- 
tic porches and its windows. Arabesques of similar 
inscriptions ornament the summits of the eight sides. 
Around the base are chiseled delicate carvings of the 
lotus flower and the lily. The ornamentation of the 



THE TAJ MAHAL. 271 

exterior nowhere strikes one as excessive, and har- 
monizes admirably with the general effect of the 
architecture. The moment we entered the interior, 
however, the sense of the ornament everywhere in- 
troduced in the lower half of the great octagonal hall 
beneath the central dome became intense, and for a 
while almost oppressive. The tombs of Banoo Begum 
and of Shah Jehan are nearly under the centre of the 
dome. The long marble sarcophagi blazed with the 
richest inlaid work. They were once thickly set with 
precious stones. Around them has been placed an oc- 
tagonal marble screen, some seven feet high, and on 
it, as well as on the pilasters of the solemn chamber, 
the skill of the worker in various colored marbles has 
been poured out in a lavish deluge. The screen is 
about two inches thick, and is so perforated as to 
look, at a little distance, like white lace-work. Seen 
near at hand, its borders are found to be inlaid every- 
where with work as fine as the best specimens of Flor- 
entine mosaic. The chief subjects represented by the 
colored stones are flowers and leaves. In the bendings 
and juxtapositions of the figures the laws of perspec- 
tive and of light and shadow are observed with the 
happiest effect. It is in this inlaid work that Italian 
aid was probably given to the Moghul designers of 
the Taj ; and yet the abundance and general arrange- 
ment of the ornamentation are not Italian, but Sara- 
cenic. 

On the pilasters and walls of the lower half of the 
octagonal inner chamber, the work in pietra dura 
flames out from every quarter. Half way up the pil- 
lared shade a frieze extends around the hall, bearing 



272 APPENDIX. 

quotations from the Koran. Here are jasper from 
the Punjaub, carnelians from Bagdad, turquoises from 
Thibet, agate from Yeman, lapis lazuli from Ceylon, 
coral from Arabia and the Red Sea, garnets from 
Bundelkund, diamonds from Poonah, loadstone from 
Gwalior, sapphires from Lunka, chalcedony from Vil- 
lait, onyx and amethyst from Persia. Most of these 
precious stones were received in place of tribute from 
different nations under Shah Jehan's rule, or as pres- 
ents. The white marble came from Jeypore, in Raj- 
pootana ; the yellow from the banks of the Nerbudda. 
There are no windows of glass in the Taj. The 
great recesses, where windows would be placed in a 
Gothic cathedral, are filled with marble lattice-work, 
so beautifully designed as at once to admit the light 
and exclude the direct rays of the sun. The dome 
has in it no openings whatever, and so the interior 
lacks that expression of aspiration which is the chief 
glory of St. Peter's, or St. Paul's, or of the Pantheon. 
Neither does the outline of the interior of the dome 
correspond with that of the exterior. The true tombs 
of Shah Jehan and of his wife are in the basement of 
the building, in a space entered only by a sloping mar- 
ble passage, and lighted from its single door. The 
highly ornamented sarcophagi, in the octagonal hall 
above, are placed exactly over the true tombs below. 
So in Akbar's magnificent tomb among the giant tam- 
arinds of Secundra, near Agra, the vault in which his 
body lies is in the base of the structure ; but the cele- 
brated block of marble which is shown as his memo- 
rial, and is inscribed with ninety-nine names of the 
Deity, is at the summit. 



THE TAJ MAHAL. 273 

Coming out into the light of a low western sun, we 
ascended one of the minarets, and afterward the great 
southern gate, and gazed upon the whole architec- 
tural group, taken as a unit. We were more and 
more impressed by its combination of vigor and bold- 
ness with symmetry and beauty ; nor did we feel that 
the ornamentation was, on the whole, excessive. Al- 
though the entire impression is undoubtedly feminine, 
the proportions of the building are so large and noble 
that it cannot with any justice be called a mere jewel 
or toy. Zoffany's remark, that all the Taj needs is 
a glass case, appeared to us as unappreciative as it is 
surly. Bunker Hill Monument, or even the Kutub 
Minar, is not as high as the central dome of the Taj. 
Its breadth and elevation are both underrated on ac- 
count of the matchless symmetry of the whole struc- 
ture. If I had some difficulty in indorsing Bishop 
Heber's remark that the Taj was designed by Titans, 
I had none at all in affirming that its plan would have 
been worthy of the feminine genius of a Raphael, al- 
though not of the entire mind of a Michel Angelo. 

The green parrots flew, screaming, above the rust- 
ling tamarinds and bamboos and mangoes and deli- 
cate acacias and stately palms of the gardens. From 
secluded distances came the notes of the mourning 
dove and of the barbet, a small bird with tones re- 
sembling those of the cuckoo, — a little drop of celes- 
tial melody to which I have listened with inexpres- 
sible delight at a thousand places throughout the 
whole length of India, from the Himalayas to Ceylon. 
The twilight passed swiftly. The stars appeared 
with a lustre peculiar to Eastern skies. It was when 

18 



274 APPENDIX. 

the moon came up that the full impression of the 
architecture and of the gardens fell upon us and 
dissipated all tendency to criticism. We wandered 
again into the hall beneath the dome, and listened to 
the long, tremulous echoes which make this resound- 
ing marble sky a kind of acoustic miracle. Hindu 
women, with tinkling bangles on their ankles, walked 
around the tomb of the beloved wife, and the dome 
transformed the tinklings into a shower of musical 
sounds, which were themselves reechoed in successive 
showers, until they faded away into the mist of silence. 
Above the tomb hung, in the very centre of the hall, 
an ostrich egg, symbol of the care which Providence 
has of helpless human hopes, left in the deserts of 
time, as the ostrich leaves her eggs in the sand, ap- 
parently forgotten, but, at last, brought to the birth 
by the genial heat of earth and sky. This symbol is 
very common, even in churches in the East, among 
Oriental Christians, and is found nearly everywhere 
in Mohammedan mosques. 

There lay on the tomb of Banoo Begum fresh 
flowers, and yet I did not feel like accepting one of 
them when it was offered to me, so loathsome is even 
the corpse of polygamy, when seen near at hand. It 
is impossible to forget that the Taj was a memorial 
not so much of a wife as of a mistress. Polygamy 
stains the historical associations of this white and 
holy architecture, and goes far toward justifying the 
remark of Talboys Wheeler, one of the historians of 
India, that, in spite of the innocence and purity of the 
marbles, the soul of the building is dead. This wo- 
man, who was called the Light of the World, may 



THE TAJ MAHAL. 275 

have been by nature one of the noblest ; but the 
polygamistic system which degraded her and her 
children has left some of the fairest regions of the 
globe without a single specimen of what a human 
home should be. 

Lying down in the twilight and gazing into the 
sky above the Ganges plain, and meditating long on 
the means by which the regeneration of Asia is to be 
achieved, I could hear the voice of that continent in 
its better future uttering above the tomb of Banoo 
Begum, in the Taj Mahal, its execration of the ha- 
rem and its malison against polygamy. 

In the silvery sea of light we walked slowly through 
the arches of the western mosque, and looked east- 
ward, on the palpitating, golden disk of the nearly 
full moon, rising behind the marble domes. The 
Jumna rolled silently past. Orion blazed from the 
mid-heaven. Akbar, Shah Jehan, Aurungzebe, were 
the ghosts in the historic sky. The whole scene was 
glorious exceedingly, and attached us mysteriously to 
Asia. It was necessary, however, to confess that the 
great souls whose memory haunts the Taj Mahal are 
few ; and that its associations, if compared with those 
of the Parthenon, are as starlight in contrast with 
sunlight. But in sorceries of symmetry in architec- 
ture the Taj has but one superior on the whole earth, 
and that is the Parthenon. It is more than much to 
be second in a list in which the Parthenon stands 
first. 



APPENDIX II. 



IN THE HIMALAYAS. 

Coleeidge's hymn to Mont Blanc does not ex- 
aggerate the impressiveness of that glorious peak of 
Europe ; but some yet unwritten and nobler hymn 
is deserved by Kinchinjunga. Darjeeling is the 
Himalayan Chamounix. The overpowering fact here 
is, however, that everything in the mountain scenery 
is on a grander than Alpine scale. From the obser- 
vatory hill in Darjeeling, where I am writing, more 
than twelve peaks can be counted which rise above 
20,000 feet, and there are none below 15,000 in the 
line between earth and sky. 

The snowy range stretches like an army of archan- 
gels from north to east around an eighth of the hori- 
zon. The waterfalls call from the distant precipices. 
The bees hum in the grass at my feet. The air is 
still, crystalline, holy. The shadows of the clouds 
chase each other over the seas of evergreen oaks, the 
giddy chasms, the stealthy glaciers, the everlasting 
snows. 

The chief peculiarity of Darjeeling is that its 
depths are almost as impressive as its heights. The 
town of white bungalows is built on the crest of a 



IN THE HIMALAYAS. 277 

wooded ridge, some three miles long and surrounded 
on the east, north, and south by gigantic ravines. As 
I look downward, the stupendous slopes, covered with 
tea - plantations, pastures, and forests, descend, in 
three directions, some six thousand feet in eleven 
miles. From the lowest point the eye can reach in 
the valley of the Runjeet River, below me, to the 
crest of Kinchin junga, the distance, in a vertical line, 
is not less than five miles. 

This scenery is probably unmatched on the earth, 
though not on the moon, in which the telescopic 
mountains, many miles high and rolled above our 
heads daily, are strangely unappreciated, and yet are 
not to be forgotten face to face with Everest and 
Kinchin junga. 

The Himalayas dazzle the Swiss Alps — not into 
nothingness, nor out of sight, nor into tameness ; but 
into a rank of incontestable inferiority. 

The Alps, however, have more variety and beauty, 
although less sublimity and grandeur, than the Him- 
alayas. In the outlook from Darjeeling, while the 
majesties are unapproachable by those of any other 
known terrestrial view, one misses keenly the lakes 
which give such a charm to the prospect from the 
Rhigi, the near glaciers and avalanches of Chamou- 
nix, and the half-mile waterfalls, the gigantic trees, 
and the astounding precipices of the Yosemite Val- 
ley. 

Mont Blanc is only 15,810 feet high, while Kin- 
chinjunga is 28,000 and Everest 29,000. Kinchin- 
junga, forty miles distant from Darjeeling, appears 
to be, as it is, more than twice as high as Mont Blanc, 



278 APPENDIX. 

as seen from Geneva. Mont Blanc, as viewed from 
Chamounix, is seen from a high mountain valley ; but 
Kinchin junga, as viewed from the Runjeet, lifts itself 
more than 25,000 feet above the level of the observer 
into the clouds. As seen from Senchal, six miles 
from Darjeeling, Everest, although it is the highest 
known summit in the world, is less impressive than 
Kinchinjunga, for it is one hundred and fifty miles 
away ; but its majesty, even in the distant view, ex- 
ceeds that of Monte Rosa and Mont Blanc, as seen 
from the towers of the Cathedral of Milan. 

" I climbed the roofs at break of day, 
Sun-smitten Alps before me lay. 

I stood among the silent statues 
And statued pinnacles mute as they. 
How faintly flushed, how phantom fair, 
Was Monte Rosa, hanging there, 

A thousand shadowy penciled valleys 
And snowy dells in a golden air." 

Tennyson : The Daisy. 

Everest is properly described by no one word except 
its native name, Deodhunga — God-height. 

Darjeeling lies only some four hundred miles north 
of Calcutta and has little snow ; but its weather is 
often icy on days when the tropical Hooghly is en- 
swathed in a steaming vapor-bath. It is reached by 
a half -day's railway journey, across flat, palm-clad, 
deltaic Bengal, to the Ganges ; a ferry over that 
broad, yellow stream, which greatly resembles the 
Missouri in the turbidness and waywardness of its 
currents, and especially in the blown sand of the flats 
in the bare portions of its bed at low water ; a night's 
journey by narrow-gauge railway to Siligori, on the 



IN THE HIMALAYAS. 279 

outer edge of the marshes at the foot of the hills ; 
and then a day's travel by steam tramway across the 
famous jungles in these marshes and along the grand 
ascent through Teendaria and Kurseong. 

In moving up the slopes of the Himalayas from 
the Ganges Plain to Darjeeling, the fascinated trav- 
eler has opportunity to study the vigorous tropical 
vegetation at the base of the hills ; the gradual 
change of this into the oak forests of the middle 
heights ; the tree ferns succeeding the palms and the 
bamboos ; the mosses festooning both the rocks and 
the trees ; the trickling rills in the cool ravines ; the 
dashing mountain brooks, with their crystal pools ; 
the trailing plants choking many of the kings of the 
forest ; the far, grand outlook over the gray, dusty 
plains, and the gleaming, tawny rivers, on their way 
through the parched lowlands ; the numberless curves 
of the iron road ; the audacious grades up which the 
engine climbs, like a thing of life ; the occasional 
villages of bamboo huts ; the sturdy Nepaulese, with 
their broad knives in their girdles ; the savage Bhoo- 
tans and Thibetans, with many of the Mongolian 
traits in their features ; the tea - plantations, with 
their capacious bungalows for the masters and rows 
of huts for the coolies ; the small, gray, patient oxen ; 
the rather undersized but vigorous Himalayan po- 
nies ; the prayer flags above Buddhist villages ; the 
slight falls of snow ; and, at last, the bursting into 
view of Kinchinjunga itself and its companion giants. 
At from 12,000 to 10,000 feet above the sea the 
southern slope of the Himalayas produces fir-trees, 
dwarf rhododendrons, aromatic rhododendrons, juni- 



280 APPENDIX. 

per, holly, currants, cherries, pears, lilacs, primroses, 
and violets; at from 10,000 to 8,000 and lower, oak, 
chestnut, olives, figs, laurel, maple, barberry, lily of 
the valley, and white rose ; at from 8,000 to 6,000 
and lower, the magnolia, peach, strawberry, and 
most of the flowers of Germany and England; at 
from 6,000 to 4,000 and lower, tree ferns, plantains, 
walnuts, and birches ; at from 4,000 to 3,000, rice, 
barley, buckwheat, maize, yam, cummin, mint, and 
rue ; at from 1,000 to the plains, figs, dates, magno- 
lias, lotus-trees, ginger, orchids, mangoes, twelve kinds 
of bamboos, and many varieties of palms. In spite, 
however, of the number and interest of the objects 
in view, the approach to Darjeeling does not equal 
that to the Yosemite Valley by the Mariposa or the 
Calaveras grove of mammoth trees ; nor that to Cha- 
mounix from Geneva by the way of Vevay, the 
Rhone Valley, and the Tete-noir Pass. 

In Darjeeling there are some 500 British residents, 
besides pupils in an important school, which prepares 
young men for the entrance examination for the Cal- 
cutta University. The whole population of the place 
is upward of 90,000 ; but so scattered are the native 
quarters, and so exclusively do the English occupy 
the summit of the ridge, that the main portion of the 
place is very British in appearance. Each house is 
surrounded by well-kept grounds ; fine, broad roads 
lead along the slopes; there is abundant greenness 
and not a little attention to landscape gardening. A 
Union chapel and an English church are among the 
principal buildings. The number of grounds for 
playing lawn-tennis and other English games indi- 



IN THE HIMALAYAS. 281 

cate the tastes of the leisured and wealthy proprie- 
tors of the tea-plantations, which abound on all the 
lower slopes. 

The Buddhist temple of the town is, on the whole, 
a repulsive place; architecturally ugly and morally 
without dignity. We saw in it a curious Buddhist 
library, of perhaps 150 volumes ; a dozen or so of un- 
tidy monks and a few savage-looking worshipers. In 
the vestibule stood a praying machine, consisting of 
a cylinder, about six feet high, placed upright, and 
filled with something like a mile's length of cloth, 
covered with printed prayers. This is whirled by a 
crank underneath it, and every revolution is equiva- 
lent to the utterance of all the prayers within the 
cylinder. A dozen or more smaller cylinders were 
in the same vestibule ; and yet smaller ones, of which 
I purchased a specimen, were in motion in the hands 
of the priests, as they walked about the temple. 
Prayer flags, as seen at Darjeeling, are strips of 
white cotton, about a yard in breadth and from ten 
to twenty feet long, attached lengthwise to poles and 
covered with printed prayers. Every motion of the 
flag in the wind is supposed to be of the same devo- 
tional value as would be the utterance of the prayers 
inscribed on the cloth. 

The Himalayas are fitly called the Abode of Snow. 
The regions around the South Pole of the earth de- 
serve this name by preeminence. It is affirmed on 
high authority that a possible accumulation of snow 
at the South Pole, in connection with certain con- 
junctions of the planets, might cause an instantane- 
ous change in the position of the axis of rotation of 



282 APPENDIX. 

the earth. The result would be a deluge, and the 
effacement of the present continents and the forma- 
tion of new ones; but it is understood by men of 
science that even in such an upheaval of the great 
deep, the tops of the Himalayas would remain above 
the waves, and thus form a beginning for a new ca- 
reer of the life of plants and animals and men in a 
renovated world. 



APPENDIX III. 



THE DEATH OF KESHUB CHUNDER SEN. 

A heeoic soldier of religious reform, a saint, a 
see - *-, has passed into the world into which all men 
haste. 

No Asiatic interested me as much as did Keshub 
Chunder Sen. I came near enough to him to under- 
stand something of his nature, his environment, his 
struggle's, his triumphs, his defeats, his hopes. On 
no one born in India did I build more expectation 
than on him as to the future of reform among the 
educated circles of Hindustan. How noble he was ; 
how serious ; how worthy of spiritual leadership ; how 
intense ; how eloquent ; how prayerful ! I saw in his 
soul the Oriental type, and was taught much by it, 
and had hoped to be taught more. The news from 
the Ganges that Keshub Chunder Sen is dead over- 
whelms me with a more profound sense of personal 
bereavement than I can now remember to have felt 
before at the departure of any public man. A most 
interesting and noble career ended at an age of less 
than forty-six. Oh, my brother, my brother, how 
lonely the world seems without thee ! 

Rammohun Roy never ceased to be a Brahmin. 



284 APPENDIX. 

When he died at Bristol, England, in 1833, the sa- 
cred Brahminical thread was found around his shoul- 
ders. He was a vacillating adherent of a conservative 
form of Unitarianism. He was consistent in his op- 
position to idolatry ; but he never efficiently attacked 
caste. He instituted an agitation which led to the 
abolition of the burning of Hindu widows ; but he 
did not permit their remarriage. He was a writer of 
much logical power, but inspired his associates with 
little spiritual fervor. 

Debendranath Tagore, who reorganized the Brahmo 
Somaj, at Calcutta, after Rammohun Roy's death, 
was a man of devout and lofty soul ; but he did not 
wholly break with Hindu customs as to caste. 

It is to Keshub Chunder Sen that India owes the 
most thorough opposition any of her native reform- 
ers has yet made to caste, child-marriages, and en- 
forced widowhood, as well as to idolatry, polytheism, 
pantheism, and materialism in all their forms. When 
yet comparatively young and acting in closest fellow- 
ship with Debendranath Tagore, he demanded that 
only those who had cast away the Brahminical sacred 
thread should be allowed to act as preachers in the 
Brahmo Somaj. This reform was not granted to 
him ; and, therefore, with some of the most earnest 
and progressive of the Brahmos, he seceded from the 
original society, and founded in 1860 a new organiza- 
tion, which cut the last bonds that bound it to Brah- 
minism. It was under his leadership that the Indian 
Reform Association was organized, after his return 
from his visit to England in 1870. He stimulated 
discussions as to the evils of child-marriages. He 



DEATH OF KESHUB CHUNDER SEN. 285 

broke with all the rules of orthodox Hindu society 
in favoring the remarriage of widows and marriages 
between persons of different castes. In the face of 
the bitterest opposition he secured from the govern- 
ment of India a law legalizing such marriages. Only 
those who know how the topic of marriage is inter- 
woven with the whole net-work of legal and social 
usages in India will appreciate the courage and the 
wisdom of this effort to engraft Occidental and 
Christian ideas as to the home and the family upon 
Oriental customs having the highest sanction of age 
and Brahminical approval. 

But Keshub Chunder Sen was an orator as well as 
a reformer. In his earliest manhood it was the force 
and beauty of his public speech which first gave him 
influence as a leader. Oriental in his rhetoric, and 
too little given to theological study, he sometimes of- 
fended severe Occidental tastes by both his manner 
and matter ; but, as he grew more mature, he was be- 
coming more balanced and massive. His best pro- 
ductions have an almost' classical grace and vigor. 
They are likely to have a long life among Brahmos 
of the progressive type ; for they breathe the loftiest 
spirit of reform, of patriotism, and of religious aspi- 
ration. Once a year, in the latter portion of his life, 
he was accustomed to proclaim the principles of his 
society in an elaborate oration in the Town Hall at 
Calcutta. That great audience-room, holding from 
three to four thousand, was usually crowded when he 
appeared in it. 

Keshub Chunder Sen was not a reformer and ora- 
tor merely ; he was also a religious seer. When his 



286 APPENDIX. 

influence over his followers is closely analyzed, it will 
be found that his deep communion with the unseen 
world was the chief source of the authority he was 
allowed to exercise among his friends and disciples. 
At a time when his supporters were becoming dis- 
heartened and disunited, he instituted daily devo- 
tional exercises for them in his own house. He led 
these services with such a spirit that schism was ef- 
fectually overcome. Sometimes the exercises were 
three and five hours in duration. Any religious doc- 
trine which was habitually impressed upon the minds 
of the worshipers in these assemblies for prayer was 
regarded as infallibly revealed to them by the Holy 
Spirit. This startling claim was the centre of the 
religious philosophy of the Progressive Brahmo So- 
maj, as led by Keshub Chunder Sen. He held, in- 
deed, that the spirit of the prophets must be subject 
to the prophets ; but he regarded inspiration as quite 
possible in our day. He always spoke with reverence 
of all the sacred books of the world, and with the ut- 
most reverence of the Psalms, the Prophets, and the 
New Testament Scriptures. The crown of India, he 
once said, " does not belong to Victoria. It belongs 
to the Founder of Christianity." He went so far as 
to assert in words " the coeternity of the Son with 
the Father," and to declare that the more men honor 
the Son, the more they honor the Father. But, by 
the preexistence of Christ, he meant only the ex- 
istence from eternity in the Divine Mind of a plan 
to bring Christ into the world. He seems not to have 
grasped completely the truth of Christ's Deity as re- 
vealed in the Gospels ; but had his devotional moods 



DEATH OF KESHUB CHUNDER SEN. 287 

led him to feel as deeply the need of an atonement 
as they did that of the new birth, he would probably 
have found God in Christ, both a Saviour and Lord. 
He emphasized in every way the truths of reason and 
Scripture concerning the Holy Spirit. His religion 
he called Eclectic Theism, or the New Dispensation 
of the Spirit. It was undoubtedly his most sacred 
conviction that he was himself in some sense inspired 
as a teacher of this New Dispensation. 

Who will take the place of the reformer, the ora- 
tor, and the seer ? His chief coadjutor for years has 
been Babu Mozumdar, a remarkable man as re- 
former and orator and religious teacher, but not 
likely to command, or to desire, that personal allegi- 
ance which Keshub Chunder Sen secured. My fear 
is that the most progressive friends of Keshub Chun- 
der Sen may push to wild extremes his doctrine of 
inspiration and reverence him as their guide yet, al- 
though his soul has passed into the skies. He may 
be more influential after his death than he was be- 
fore. His words may now be treasured as those of 
an inspired prophet, and give direction to the future 
movements of that portion of the theistic societies of 
India which he led. It has been frequently predicted 
— and even by Babu Mozumdar himself — that the 
death of Keshub Chunder Sen would only add to the 
authority of the New Dispensation. 

Babu Mozumdar, who has left delightful memo- 
ries of himself in England and America, on his tour 
of the world, is now, perhaps, in Japan ; or, possibly, 
on the long voyage thence to India. Probably the 
first news he will receive on setting his feet once 



288 APPENDIX. 

more on his native shores will be that of the death of 
his great leader. There are less than two hundred 
Brahmo societies in India, and not all of them are 
progressive enough to sympathize with Keshub Chun- 
der Sen. The numbers represented by Hindu The- 
ism are small ; but it has an important leavening in- 
fluence in the educated circles of a land containing 
more people than any Caesar ever governed. 

The progressive Brahmos are in the vestibule of 
Christianity, with their faces turned toward the in- 
ner doors ; while radical Unitarians in the Occident 
are in the same vestibule, but often with their faces 
turned toward the outer doors. The Brahmo Creed 
is not yet fixed. It is likely to crystallize much about 
the final opinions of Keshub Chunder Sen. Would 
that Providence had led him to a deeper knowledge 
of Christianity before snatching him from this world ! 
Mere Theism, in the form in which he held it, can- 
not save India. Christianity can. 

Boston, Mass. 



APPENDIX IV. 



TWENTY-FOUR QUESTIONS ON NEW JAPAN. 

Answered in writing by the Rev. Dr. Verbeck, of Tokio ; by the Rev. 
Mr. Ibuka and other Japanese, of Tokio ; by the Rev. Dr. Greene 
and Professor Gordon, of Kioto ; and by the Rev. J. H. Neesima 
and other Japanese, of Kioto. 

[Oral answers were given by a missionary meeting at Yokohama, 
Dr. Hepburn presiding ; by a missionary meeting at Tokio, Dr. Ver- 
beck presiding ; and by a missionary meeting at Kobe, the Rev. Mr. 
Gulick presiding, to the following written questions by Mr. Cook.] 

THE QUESTIONS. 

1. What are the chief objections made by edu- 
cated natives of Japan to the acceptance of Christian- 
ity ? 

2. What are the chief hindrances to its acceptance 
by the uneducated among the Japanese ? 

3. What are the most mischievous forms of inher- 
ited misbelief among the Japanese ? 

4. What are the most mischievous forms of im- 
ported unbelief ? 

5. What is the position of the Japanese newspaper 
press, both native and English, in relation to Chris- 
tianity ? 

6. What has been the religious and philosophical 

19 



290 APPENDIX. 

attitude of the foreign teachers who have been in- 
vited to Japan to give instruction in the modern sci- 
ences ? 

7. What is the average religious effect of a liberal 
education obtained in the highest seats of learning 
now accessible in Japan ? 

8. What books, opposed to evangelical Christianity 
and a theistic philosophy, are the most read by the 
educated Japanese ? 

9. What books defending Christianity are the most 
useful in Japan ? 

10. By what aspects of Christian truth are the 
most conversions made ? 

11. What is the effect of liberal education in Amer- 
ica or Europe upon the religious opinions of Japanese 
students ? 

12. What policy do the foreign residents of Japan 
recommend on the subject of exterritoriality ? 

13. How far are Japanese native churches at pres- 
ent self-supporting ? 

14. Is it advisable to encourage native Christians 
in Japan to pay a tenth of their income to their 
churches, for the support of the Gospel ? 

15. What systems of self-help have been found the 
most efficient among the native churches of Japan ? 

16. What is the attitude of the Japanese govern- 
ment toward active Evangelical Protestantism in na- 
tive churches ? 

17. What are the present prospects of the Shinto, 
the Buddhist, and the Confucian creeds in Japan ? 

18. What are the condition and influence of the 
Greek Church and of Roman Catholicism in Japan ? 



QUESTIONS ON NEW JAPAN. 291 

19. What is being done for the amelioration of the 
condition of woman in Japan, especially for female 
education, and what more ought to be done? 

20. What hindrances does the progress of Chris- 
tianity in Japan experience on account of merely 
nominal Christianity, or infidelity, or immorality in 
the lives of European and American residents ? 

21. How far should the study of the English lan- 
guage be pushed in connection with mission schools ? 

22. How far should native Japanese converts be 
expected and taught to adopt Western manners and 
customs in social intercourse, dress, and style of liv- 
ing, when they adopt Christianity ? 

23. What criticisms, whether just or unjust, are 
made by the most intelligent and devout among Jap- 
anese Christians on the methods of the foreign mis- 
sionaries now in Japan ? 

24. What mistakes do the churches and average 
public sentiment in the West make as to the religiou3 
and political condition of Japan ? 

ANSWERS BY DR. VERBECK, TOKIO. 

1. The religious sentiments of educated natives 
are and for many generations (feudal system) have 
been very imperfectly developed. A large majority 
of them probably regard Christianity with indiffer- 
ence ; but as Confucianists they look upon all religion 
and everything related to it as good enough for and 
perhaps beneficial to the common people, but with 
more or less of contempt as far as they themselves 
are concerned. The educated Japanese (as well as 
the uneducated) is very apt to attend to and accept 



292 APPENDIX. 

whatever is in vogue for the time being, or whatever 
may improve his social status. But what is in vogue 
in Japan at the present time is not religion, but the 
all-absorbing topic of politics. Hence it is that, when 
Christianity is discussed by members of the class in 
question, it usually is from a political point of view. 
As regards social, and especially official, standing, an 
educated native's public profession of Christianity 
might and probably would be more or less prejudicial 
to it. When the Christian Church in Japan will have 
attained a certain amount of prestige (and by that 
time Christian knowledge will be widely diffused 
among all classes), the educated Japanese will not be 
disinclined to accept Christianity, if otherwise pre- 
pared for it. 

2. Faithful or superstitious attachment to Bud- 
dhism and ignorance and sensuality. 

3. Outside of Buddhistic superstitions and some 
popular delusions, — ghosts, foxes, etc., — the com- 
mon Japanese, especially as compared with the Chi- 
nese, seem to be remarkably free from ineradicable 
superstitions and prejudices. This is shown by the 
advanced age of many of our best Christians, and by 
the general readiness of this people to adopt foreign 
things (medicines, machines, processes, laws, man- 
ners, and even ideas). 

4. Materialism, and to some extent Atheism. 

5. The native papers are wrapped up in rather 
wild politics. Much of what was said under 1 ap- 
plies to them. Articles very favorable to Christian- 
ity have from time to time appeared, and also very 
bitter ones. Christianity is chiefly discussed by them 



QUESTIONS ON NEW JAPAN. 293 

from a political stand-point, and then usually with a 
hostile tendency. One of the English papers (there 
are three) always speaks with respect of Christian- 
ity, and generally of missions and missionaries. 

6. A number of them have been and are earnest 
Christian men. Some skeptic (Morse) Japanese stu- 
dents may listen with pleasure to a skeptical foreign- 
er's teachings, and may follow him; but I doubt if 
they have any real respect for him. 

7. It is naught at present ; but this want, at least 
as far as the utter absence of moral teaching is con- 
cerned (especially in view of the general decay of the 
native religions), is felt by influential members of the 
educational department, so much so that various ways 
have been proposed and discussed by them for the re- 
moval of this evil (among others an eclectic system). 

8. Mill, Spencer, Buckle, the volumes of the disap- 
pointing " International Series," etc. 

9. Martin's " Evidences of Christianity " has been 
and is one of the most widely read and useful books 
of this kind. It is in Chinese, with pointing to 
make it intelligible to a tolerably educated Japanese. 
The Scriptures are extensively sold. 

10. This reply is rather venturesome ; but, stating 
it roughly, I should say that two fifths are led toward 
Christianity by the apparent influence of its redemp- 
tive aspect ; two fifths by its moral (ethical) aspect ; 
and one fifth by its civilizing aspect. The moral as- 
pect of Christianity — such as that e. g. set forth in 
the Sermon on the Mount — always impresses the 
Japanese when it is brought to their attention (but 
it is less effective than the redemptive aspect of 



294 APPENDIX. 

Christianity in really leading a man to a sincere ac- 
ceptance of Christ ; it is more apt to end in mere ad- 
miration from without). 

11. Not good, with a few happy exceptions (Nee- 
sima). 

12. There is no emigration, properly so called, of 
Japanese to foreign parts. As a general thing a Jap- 
anese when at Rome will do as the Romans do. He 
is easily influenced by his surroundings ; he is a crea- 
ture of policy. In America he may, to all appear- 
ances, be a Christian. When he comes home again 
he is no more a Christian. 

13. See statistics. 

14. I should not favor it unless it took its rise spon- 
taneously in individual churches. By urging it as a 
general rule I should fear I might lay the foundation 
for a superstition in connection with church contribu- 
tions. The voluntariness of the gifts might also be 
impaired. 

15. No personal experience. 

16. Indifferent, if not favorable. As long as native 
Christians lead honest and quiet lives, the govern- 
ment does not interfere in the least. (The burial 
question is a Buddhistic rather than a political ques- 
tion.) 

17. Not very bright, I should say. In spite of 
considerable efforts to uphold them, they are declin- 
ing. 

18. Roman Catholicism spreads widely among the 
lower classes, but the elements gathered in are weak. 
The Romanists have very little access to the educated 
classes. 



QUESTIONS ON NEW JAPAN. 295 

19. A good deal is done in this department both 
by the government secularly and the mission schools 
secularly and religiously, and all that seems to be 
wanting is a wider extension of the methods now in 
operation. The importance of this department can- 
not be overstated. 

20. Outside of the serving classes and those coming 
in direct relations with immoral foreign residents, in 
the way of trade or otherwise, I doubt if the hin- 
drances from this source are as great as might be 
supposed. I think many of the natives have a clear 
idea that immoral foreigners are violating the doc- 
trines and conventionalities of their own civilized 
countries. 

21. The intelligence of the people is often under- 
rated, even by those who reside here, chiefly on ac- 
count of its not always moving in the same lines 
which we foreigners have been trained in. 

The want of truthfulness is justly ascribed to the 
Japanese ; it is a deep - seated characteristic. The 
mere number of baptized Christians and church mem- 
bers is not a sufficient index of the attitude of the 
people at large toward Christianity ; it is an index of 
that attitude toward Christianity, as it depends on 
foreign missions in this country. As regards the po- 
litical condition, foreigners at home have no idea of 
the vastness of the spread of the purest radicalism 
among all classes of this people. 

1. I have not referred to the anti-foreign feeling 
prevalent among the people. It is so strong that 
many measure a man's patriotism by the degree of 
this feeling. I am convinced that it arises on the 



296 APPENDIX. 

one hand, no doubt, from Buddhistic and Shintoistic 
jealousy of Christianity; but, on the other hand, 
chiefly (nine tenths) from political jealousy (exterri- 
toriality). If the exterritorial rights claimed and 
possessed by foreigners in Japan were abolished or 
given up, one would hear comparatively little of ha- 
tred of foreigners. As the Japanese are constituted, 
few things are more calculated to offend and hurt 
their vanity than exterritoriality. 

2. The money question, as it continually arises in 
connection with the work of the foreign missions in 
this country, I have also not touched upon in the 
above replies. It is a serious problem, and I see no 
way open for a solution which would be sure of pro- 
ducing satisfactory results, and especially no way that 
would be acceptable to either the missionaries in the 
field or their constituents at home. One thing seems 
to me clear : if a system were used according to which 
not a dollar of foreign money passed out of the hand 
of the missionary into that of the native convert (lay 
or ordained), a great part of native prejudice and ob- 
jection to Christianity would be removed. 

3. A large share of native impatience under foreign 
control or oversight over native churches would be re- 
moved, together with the removal of exterritoriality. 

ANSWERS BY THE REV. ME. IBUKA AND OTHER 
JAPANESE OF TOEZO. 

1. The chief objections made by the educated Jap- 
anese to the acceptance of Christianity are six, viz. : — 

(a.) Supernatural element in Christianity; e. g. 
miracles and divinity of Christ. 



QUESTIONS ON NEW JAPAN. 297 

(5.) The opposition of Christianity to ancestral 
worship, especially among those who have received 
Chinese education. 

(c) The doctrine of future existence, which they 
consider as a pious fraud. 

(<#.) Its supposed disadvantage to the growth of 
national spirit and to the independence of the coun- 
try. 

(e.) Alleged conflicts between Christianity and 
modern science. 

(/.) Supposed hindrances of Christianity to the 
progress of civilization. 

2. Among the hindrances to its acceptance by the 
uneducated the following may be mentioned : — 

(a.) The fear of offending the government and 
their friends. 

(5.) The observance of the Sabbath. 

(c.) Ancestral worship. 

(c?.) Simplicity of Christian worship. 

(e.) Dislike of change. 

(/.) Strictness of Christian morals. 

(#.) Sacrifices and obstacles inherent to Christian 
profession. 

3. The rationalistic tendency of Confucianism 
among the educated class. 

4. Western Atheism, Materialism, Secularism, Ag- 
nosticism, and gross forms of Utilitarianism. (Renan, 
Strauss, and other critics of more refined form on 
Christianity are not yet extensively known.) 

5. The native newspapers of Tokio are mostly 
indifferent to Christianity, excepting a few which 
are ready to attack it whenever they have oppor- 



298 APPENDIX. 

tunity. Buddhists and Shintoists have organs of 
their own. 

6. At present most of those instructors who have 
greatest influence over the youthful minds are against 
Christianity. 

7. Unfavorable to Christianity. 

8. Buckle's " History of Civilization " (translated) ; 
John S. Mill's works (his "Essays on Religion and 
Utilitarianism," translated) ; " Huxley on Proto- 
plasm " (translated) ; Draper's " Conflicts between 
Science and Religion," and " The Intellectual De- 
velopment in Europe ; " Thomas Paine's " Age of Rea- 
son " (translated); Ingersoll's "Lectures on Gods" 
(translated) ; Herbert Spencer's works, Bain's works. 

9. Dr. Martin's " Evidences of Christianity," and 
Dr. Williamson's " Natural Theology," in Chinese. 

10. (a.) The great comfort which Christianity 
gives to the afflicted. 

(6.) Excellency of Christian morals. 

11. It is not uncommon that our students who 
went to America return converted ; but we have not 
known or heard of a single instance of the student 
who was converted in France, Germany, or England. 

12. [No answer.] 

13. There are some self-supporting native churches ; 
but, generally speaking, they are only partially so. 

14. Doubtful. 

15. [No answer.] 

16. At present indifferent ; but at times unfavor- 
able. 

17. Shintoism is fast declining in its power. Bud- 
dhistic faith is losing its hold upon the minds of the 



QUESTIONS ON NEW JAPAN. 299 

people ; but the priests are making a vigorous at- 
tempt to withstand Christianity. 

18. Romanism has little or no influence among the 
educated class ; but it is gaining its adherents among 
the uneducated mass. They are said to far outnum- 
ber the Protestants. The Greek Church is making 
considerable progress. 

19. The condition of woman in Japan is not so de- 
graded as foreigners usually imagine. But female 
education is to be encouraged much further. 

20. To an immense degree. 

21. [No answer.] 

22. At present to the utmost degree and as far as 
possible. A strong Christian college is the great 
want. 

23. They ought to be taught to adopt Christianity 
only. 

Among the hindrances to the evangelical work in 
Japan we respectfully submit the following to your 
consideration : — 

1. The want of insight on the part of missionaries 
into the Japanese character. 

2. The want of their attention to current events. 

3. Indiscreet employment of native preachers. 

4. The want of their respect toward the Japanese 
people. 

5. Their sectarian bias. 

6. Low standard of Christian literature among 
some missionaries. 

N. Tamtjra. M. Nyemuea. 

H. Kozaki. K. Ibuka. 



300 APPENDIX. 

ANSWERS BY DES. GEEENE, GOEDON, AND CUETIS, 
OF KIOTO. 

1. The chief objections to the acceptance of Chris- 
tianity on the part of educated Japanese are : — 

(1.) The supernatural element. 

(2.) The belief that Christianity leads men to un- 
dervalue the virtues of filial piety and patriotism. 
Special stress has recently been laid upon this ob- 
jection ; and it has been argued that Christianity, by 
lessening the patriotic spirit, will, if widely accepted, 
seriously reduce the strength of the nation, and not 
improbably result in a state of weak dependence upon 
some foreign power. 

(3.) The belief that Christianity is opposed to in- 
tellectual progress. 

(4.) The belief that the teachings of Christianity 
are in conflict with modern science. 

2. Objections to the acceptance of Christianity by 
the uneducated : — 

(1.) Prejudice against Christianity as a foreign re- 
ligion. 

(2.) Fear of petty persecution from friends and 
neighbors. 

(3.) The sacrifices which Christianity demands, es- 
pecially those connected with its strict morality, and 
the difficulty of keeping the Sabbath. 

3. Among the educated classes, Confucianism, be- 
cause of its agnostic character; but among the unedu- 
cated, the various forms of Buddhism. 

4. Materialism, Agnosticism, and Atheism. 

5. The principal native newspapers are indifferent 



QUESTIONS ON NEW JAPAN. 301 

to Christianity, though the organs of the various sects 
of Buddhism assail Christianity as vigorously as they 
know how, and the " Jiji Shimpo" ("The Times") 
opposes its progress because of its alleged tendency 
to weaken the national power. One vernacular pa- 
per and several periodicals are printed in the inter- 
est of Christianity and are doing good service. The 
English papers (the term English applies to them 
not only because they are printed in the English lan- 
guage, but also because all are now under English, 
control) have been in the habit of speaking slight- 
ingly of missionaries ; but of late their tone has been 
friendly, so far as the writer is aware. 

6. Although a number of eminently good men, 
who have not failed to exert a most valuable Chris- 
tian influence, have been employed as teachers in the 
public schools, yet the large majority of the teachers 
in these schools have been opposed to evangelical 
Christianity, and by no means a small share of them 
have been grossly immoral men. A considerable 
number have placed themselves in active opposition 
to Christianity. 

7. The average religious effect of a liberal educa- 
tion in the highest seats of learning in Japan has 
been decidedly anti-Christian, though there are said 
to be a few Christians among the students in the 
government schools of Tokio. 

8. Buckle's " History of Civilization," the works 
of J. S. Mill, Herbert Spencer, Draper, and Alexan- 
der Bain, Paine's " Age of Reason," and several na- 
tive works, especially one entitled " Bemino," and 
several of the publications of Mr. Fukuzawa. 



302 APPENDIX. 

9. Up to this time few Christian books in the ver- 
nacular have been published, though a good many 
valuable tracts have been put in circulation. Prob- 
ably all would agree that, aside from the Scriptures, 
no more useful book than the " Evidences of Chris- 
tianity," by Dr. Martin, of Peking, has been circu- 
lated in Japan. The number of copies in the hands 
of the people must be very large. Dr. Williamson's 
work on " Natural Theology " has had a considerable 
sale, but its circulation must be much less than that 
of Dr. Martin's book. 

10. The exhibition of God's love in Christ and the 
purity of the morality of Christianity have, perhaps, 
made as deep an impression upon the Japanese as 
any parts of the Christian system. The personal in- 
fluence of the missionaries has been the means of 
bringing very many to Christianity. 

11. A considerable number have, while in Amer- 
ica, connected themselves with evangelical churches ; 
but probably not one in five of such persons have 
maintained a Christian life after returning to Japan. 
Those who have are among the most influential of 
the Japanese Christians. 

12. Probably most of the foreign residents of Ja- 
pan do not feel prepared for any radical change in 
the present exterritorial arrangements. They would 
be glad to see Japan freed from some of the annoy- 
ances to which she is now subjected ; but they are 
unwilling to be placed under the jurisdiction of the 
Japanese government. Since the codification of the 
laws of Japan, there is less complaint of the laws ; 
but a good deal of distrust of the Japanese courts 



QUESTIONS ON NEW JAPAN. 303 

is manifested. The foreign residents profess to think 
that the judiciary is not independent of the execu- 
tive department of the government, and that there 
is no well-defined limit to the authority of the police 
and other officials, and that, should they come under 
Japanese jurisdiction, they would find themselves an- 
noyed by ill-advised or even by severely oppressive 
legislation. They contend that the Japanese govern- 
ment is not yet able to give such guarantees for the 
uniform and equitable administration of justice as 
Western governments have a right to require. 

It has been suggested that if a court of appeals 
composed, perhaps, of four foreigners and five Japan- 
ese, were organized, not as a mixed court in the usual 
acceptation of that term, but as an integral part of 
the judicial system of Japan, with the provision that 
all cases in which a foreigner were concerned might 
be brought before it on appeal, this lack of confidence 
on the part of foreigners and their governments in 
the judiciary of Japan might in a few years be so far 
overcome that the leading treaty powers would gladly 
drop the obnoxious clause. To secure this end it 
would, of course, be necessary to arrange for the pub- 
lication of full reports in English and Japanese of 
all cases which might be brought before this court. 
It is probable that some arrangement of this sort 
must precede by some years the abandonment of the 
exterritorial claims of the treaty powers. 

The operation of this provision of the treaties is 
by no means appreciated by most foreign residents, 
or there would be more hope of its abandonment. It 
operates not only to needlessly irritate, but to seri- 



304 APPENDIX. 

ously hamper, the government in almost every di- 
rection. It even, in some cases, renders inoperative 
the municipal laws of the land. Witness the break- 
ing down of the Health Regulations in 1879 (see 
"Foreign Relations of the U. $., 1879," p. 657/), 
and the continual breach of the Japanese laws against 
lotteries in the neighborhood of Yokohama (see " Ja- 
pan Weekly Mail," April 22, 1882). Were it nec- 
essary, illustrations might be multiplied of the con- 
tempt into which just and needful laws are thrown 
by the conflict of authority growing out of the pres- 
ent arrangements. To the majority of our missiona- 
ries it seems that the real injury to the Japanese 
government is out of all proportion to the advan- 
tages which the foreigners enjoy ; and they would 
gladly see the present treaties abrogated to-morrow, 
and the Japanese government assume jurisdiction 
over resident foreigners as fully as the United States 
government does over similar persons within her own 
domain. It is not to be supposed that the change 
could be inaugurated without inconvenience, but it 
seems fitting that the inconvenience should fall upon 
the comparatively few foreigners and not upon the 
nation of Japan. ■ It may well be questioned whether 
the interests of American citizens would not be as 
safe in the hands of the Japanese government as in 
those of any government in the world aside from 
those of the Protestant countries of Europe- and 
America. 

D. C. G. 

13. See statistics. 

14. I think they should be encouraged to a full 



QUESTIONS ON NEW JAPAN. 305 

consecration of their means to Christ, and the prac- 
tice of giving one tenth may be, and has been, nrged 
upon them with happy results ; but they should be 
cautioned that there is no special merit in giving just 
that proportion. It should be a limit below which 
they are not to fall, rather than one above which they 
should not think of rising. We have not a few 
Christians, I am convinced, who give more than that 
proportion. 

15. With us there has been no fixed system, and 
I doubt if it is wise to have one. The responsibility 
of the Japanese Christians for the full management 
of the Japanese churches and the complete evangel- 
ization of Japan (the missionaries being merely tem- 
porary guides and helpers) is the essential thing; 
modes of presenting this may be determined by the 
individual tact and preferences of the teacher and 
the condition and disposition of the several churches. 

16. Some members of the government are hostile ; 
more are indifferent ; others are convinced that Chris- 
tianity is a blessing, and are ready to favor it as it 
shall, by its good results, commend itself to the peo- 
ple. 

17. There is little in Shinto. Confucianism is 
largely negative. Buddhism (two or three sects of 
it) shows as much life and power here in Japan as 
anywhere on earth. Crowds attend its (occasional) 
preaching services, and large gifts flow into its treas- 
ury. Among these latter are some for the special 
purpose of opposing Christianity. 

18. It is said that both use money freely, and 
while a large number (say 5,000 for the Greek and 

20 



306 APPENDIX. 

40,000 for the Roman Church) from the lower classes 
are claimed as adherents, the number of educated be- 
lievers is small. The patriotism of the Japanese 
leads them to look with suspicion on those religions 
which seem so closely allied with the idea of tem- 
poral power. 

19. In the common schools much more is done for 
girls than formerly. The normal school for girls, 
under the patronage of the empress, is a further step 
in the same direction. Mission schools are doing 
very much directly, and indirectly their influence is 
beyond measure. 

20. It is sometimes said that if Christianity has no 
better results than those exhibited by the foreign res- 
idents Japan has little to gain from it. On the other 
hand, the upright and unselfish lives of many Chris- 
tian residents are not without great effect ; and the 
Japanese readily make the distinction between the 
two classes. 

21. Without teaching English no mission school 
has succeeded or can succeed in Japan. And if Eng- 
lish be taught, it ought to be taught thoroughly. 
Our girls who learn English at all should be able to 
read commentaries like those of Alford's "New Tes- 
tament for English Readers," or those of Lyman Ab- 
bott, and also biographies and other religious works. 
It is a great gain to have our young men able to use 
the apologetic literature of the English language. 

22. They should not be taught " Western " man- 
ners, etc., at all. They should remain as far as possi- 
ble in close sympathy and fellowship with their own 
people, whom they are to win to Christ. But Chris- 



QUESTIONS ON NEW JAPAN. „307 

tianity will indirectly affect manners and customs 
more or less — e. g. it has made and will still more 
make the clothing comfortable (flannels) and decent 
(underclothing) ; it brings a more sincere and unsel- 
fish politeness, and places husband and wife more 
nearly on an equality, etc. 

23. [No answer.] 

24. Christians in America fail to keep in mind the 
dark background of heathenism ; and so truthful re- 
ports of changes in the government and people and 
of progress in mission work give an exaggerated im- 
pression of what has been done, and leave but a very 
inadequate idea of the task still before us. 

D. C. Greene, \ Com. of the Japan Mis- 
M. L. Gordon, > sion of the Ameri- 
W. W. Curtis, ) can Board. 

ANSWERS BY THE REV. J. H. NEESIMA AND OTHER 
JAPANESE, OP KIOTO. 

1. They think that Christianity will destroy pa- 
triotism, filial duty, loyalty to the Mikado, give rise 
to religious wars, become the secret means of foreign 
interference. 

They regard the supernatural elements in Chris- 
tianity as an outgrowth of superstitions and to be 
antagonistic to modern sciences. 

They confound Protestantism with Roman and 
Greek Catholicism. 

2. They regard Christianity as a foreign religion. 
They fear the government persecutions on account 

of the attitude of the government toward the Roman 
Catholics in the past. 



308. APPENDIX. 

They regard Christianity as a demon's religion. 
They regard the Sabbath and other Christian dis- 
ciplines as too severe and impracticable. 

3. (a.) Pride, Materialism, Pantheism, and ances- 
tral worship among the Confucianists. 

(5.) Worship of mammon and lusts, under the va- 
rious forms of idolatry. 

4. The influence of the materialistic and skeptical 
writers, like Buckle, Mill, Spencer, etc., is felt very 
largely among the educated class. 

5. Generally indifferent. 

6. The influence of Christian teachers has been 
generally very weak, overpowered by some bold in- 
fidel teachers. 

7. Quite antagonistic to Christianity. 

8. The works of Buckle, Mill, Draper, Thomas 
Paine, Herbert Spencer, Alexander Bain, and Robert 
Ingersoll. 

9. Dr. Martin's " Evidences of Christianity," Wil- 
liamson's "Natural Theology," both in Chinese. No 
English apologetic works are read except by Chris- 
tians. 

10. (a.) The excellence of the Christian ethics. 
(6.) The reasonableness of the Christian system. 
(c.) The doctrine of the New Birth. 

(c?.) The doctrine of the Atonement. 

(e.) The doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul. 

11. Quite unfavorable. Very few of those edu- 
cated in Europe and America having come back con- 
sistent Christians. 

12. [No answer.] 



QUESTIONS ON NEW JAPAN. 309 

13. Those connected with A. B. C. F. M. are 

mostly self-supporting. 

14. Yes. But must be done with great caution. 

15. Gradual diminution of foreign money in pro- 
portion to the growth of the churches. 

16. Apparently indifferent. 

17. They are making their very best efforts. 

18. The Roman Catholic membership is very large ; 
but they are very ignorant, and hence are of no in- 
fluence. The Greek Catholics are also making con- 
siderable progress in North Japan. 

19. Nothing is done outside of the Christian com- 
munities except a few government schools. The 
Christian education of women ought to be very 
strongly encouraged. 

20. They are held out as the representatives of 
Christian countries ; hence, the evils are very great. 

21. At least as high as in the government univer- 
sity. 

22. Only Christian principles ought to be taught. 

23. (#.) Some of the missionaries do not seem to 
appreciate sufficiently the importance of raising up 
first-class Christian workers. 

(6.) Some of the missionaries do not seem to ap- 
preciate fully the good influence which Christian in- 
structors, physicians, and statesmen could exert in 
Japanese society. 

(e.) Some of the American and English mission- 
ary societies seem to depend on the quantity rather 
than on the quality of the missionaries. Hence, the 
utmost need of a Christian university, with able pro- 



310 APPENDIX. 

fessors, to raise up consecrated and scholarly preach- 
ers, teachers, statesmen, and physicians. 

Joseph H. Neesima. P. M. Kanamori. 

A. T. Fuwa. S. J. Mujagawa. 

J. T. Ize. G. En. Kato. 

L. M. ICHIHARA. A. S. YOSHIDA. 

H. K. Morita. J. K. Ebina. 



APPENDIX V. 

THE FUTURE OF JAPANESE CIVILIZATION. 
SPEECH AT KIOTO, JAPAN, MAY 24, 1882. 

Through Professor Ichihara as Interpreter. 



The occasion on which the following" address was delivered has been 
described by the Rev. M. L. Gordon, M. D. , a professor in the Colle- 
giate School of Kioto. "The Kioto meeting," he writes, "was re- 
markable in several respects. While a national parliament has not 
yet been established, there are already local assemblies where repre- 
sentatives, elected by the people, discuss and decide many matters of 
local interest. That which meets in Kioto includes the city and two 
or three outlying provinces. Leading members of this assembly in- 
vited Mr. Cook to deliver the address, and they provided the building 
and assumed all the expenses. They issued tickets of admission, and 
many members of the assembly and leading officials of the city gov- 
ernment were present, the vice-governor being on the platform. Some 
Buddhist priests were invited and were present, as were many of the 
most intelligent men of the city. 

" The largest building that could that day be secured was a theatre 
holding 1,200 to 1,500, and it was filled to its utmost capacity. Mr. 
Cook's address, with its interpretation, occupied three hours and three 
quarters, during the whole of which time, with perhaps the exception 
of the last twenty minutes when some began to leave the room, there 
was the most perfect order. The address was the same as that given 
in Kobe and Osaka, only fuller and more outspoken. It was indeed a 
rare day, and as he sowed with a full hand those seeds of Evangelical 
Christian truth into minds which, if they had heard at all, had heard 
from afar, one could not help the feeling that the hand of God was in 
it, and that He would not suffer His word to return unto Him void. It 
is probable that the address was more distinctively religious than some 



312 APPENDIX. 

expected it to be. still the managers of the meeting kne^v -<vhat Mr. 
Cook's addresses had been elsewhere, and they invited him vrithout 
even as! suggestion that he should trim his speech. 

" Gaming out or that ciCTC-cing vdth the recollection that that great 
audience 01 Legislators, a vice-governor and many lower officials, phy- 
sic ians. lawyers, editors, teachers, pupils, priests, merchants, etc.. had 
been sitting- in perfect quietness and attention for four hours, listening 
be a Christian preacher, a foreigner, too. at that, declaring here in this 
old. sacred city of Kioto that Christianity alone can give them the 
civilization they seek, the safe constitutional freedom to which they 
aspire, and then recalling the fact that vrithin ten years a Protes- 
tant Christian, imprisoned for his faith alone, died in the prison of 
this same citv. one could hardly help shouting : What hath God 
wrought ! * ' 

CLASSICAL ASSOCIATIONS OF KIOTO. 

It is a cheerful sign of the times that an eager and 
crowded assembly like this can be gathered within the 
rim of the sacred hills of Kioto, the Jerusalem of Re- 
formed Buddhism, to listen to a discussion of the re- 
lations of Christianity to the future of Japanese civ- 
ilization. A noble and venerable city, always spoken 
of bv the Japanese with reverential tenderness and 
exulting pride, beautiful for situation, the joy of this 
whole empire. Kioto is filled with the temples and 
schools of your traditional faiths, and crowded with 
classic and sacred associations. It. or its vicinity, 
has been for seventeen centuries the residence of the 
Mikado himself, a ruler whose family line antedates 
the Roman Empire, and is the oldest continuous dy- 
nasty on earth. 

I am aware that many opinions entirely antago- 
nistic to my own are represented in this audience. 
The Japanese, however, are the first of the nations 
of Asia to make it a part of their public policy to 



SPEECH AT KIOTO. 313 

cultivate and extend the sacred liberty of free speech. 
In employing it, I hope I shall not forget for an in- 
stant the high requirements of Japanese courtesy. 

It must be evident that no sinister or selfish mo- 
tive actuates the speaker who has here and now the 
honor to address you. I am in the pay of no society, 
committee, or individual. I am the representative of 
no religious, political, or other organization. On a 
lecture tour around the world, I am speaking here in 
response to the explicit invitation of certain honor- 
able members of the Provincial Assembly of Kioto. 
I am an American ; and my republic does not own, 
nor desire to own, a square foot of soil in Asia. 

CHARTER OATH OF THE MIKADO. 

I rejoice in your loyalty to the Emperor of Japan. 

But it is he who has proclaimed religious toleration 
throughout his dominions. 

It is he who has assured his subjects that all pub- 
lic measures shall be determined by public opinion. 

It is he who, in the great Charter Oath which he 
took in 1868, and which forms the basis of your new 
constitution, promised that intellect and learning 
should be sought for throughout the world to estab- 
lish the foundations of the empire. 

It is he who announced in 1881 his purpose of or- 
ganizing in 1890 an Imperial Parliament, conducted 
on the principles of representative institutions. 

It is he who said, in a solemn state paper, making 
these pledges to the people, " Our ancestors watch us 
from Heaven, and we recognize our responsibility to 
them for the performance of our high duties." 



314 APPENDIX. 

The Charter Oath of the Emperor of Japan is my 
justification for freedom of speech. It is the basis of 
my confidence that you will listen with patience to a 
discussion of the relations of Christianity to the fu- 
ture of Japanese civilization. He who has taken 
this oath is most certainly no chilled and benighted 
materialist. He does not doubt the immortality of 
the soul, nor that there is a judgment to come. 

In our toleration of the just liberties of public dis- 
cussion, let us imitate the deliberate action of the ex- 
alted ruler of this empire ; let us be faithful to the 
high instruction of his example in permitting and 
promoting political and religious freedom. Above 
all, let us imitate his solemnity in presence of the 
mighty problems of your future. Let us be willing 
to study the perils as well as the promises of the 
great transitional period through which Japan is 
moving in our time. Let the souls of Okubo and 
Kido counsel us. Let the martyred patriots of Se- 
kigahara, where the unification of Japan was com- 
menced in 1600, and of Fushimi, where it was com- 
pleted in 1868, inspire us to carry forward and finish 
the immense reforms which their labors began. Let 
us conduct our discussions as to the future of this 
empire, as if in sight of ancestors who watch us 
from the world into which all men haste. 

UNPARALLELED PROGRESS OF JAPAN SINCE 1868. 

Thirty years ago Japan was a hermit nation ; to- 
day she is the advanced guard of the civilization of 
Eastern Asia. 

In one generation she has made changes which it 



SPEECH AT KIOTO. 315 

required five and seven centuries to effect in Eu- 
rope. 

Within fifteen marvelous years Japan has abol- 
ished the feudal system ; emancipated four fifths of 
her people from vassalage and made them in effect 
proprietors of the soil ; disarmed a warlike nobility, 
which had probably six hundred thousand adherents 
trained to military service; established and equipped 
an army and navy on the most approved models ; 
assured the freedom of conscience ; introduced rail- 
ways, steam-navigation, the press, and a general pos- 
tal and savings system ; founded universities, and 
ordained a free system of compulsory education for 
the instruction of all the children of a population 
numbering thirty-five millions. 

Never before in the history of nations have changes 
equally important been effected with such rapidity. 

It was my fortune, a few days since, to give a lec- 
ture at the very spot on the historic shore of Yoko- 
hama, where, only twenty-eight years ago, the Amer- 
ican Commodore Perry erected the first telegraphic 
wire and placed on its track the first railway loco- 
motive ever seen in these islands. On that classic 
ground now stands the church-building of the first 
native Protestant Christian society organized in Ja- 
pan. It looks out upon a harbor filled with represen- 
tatives of the fleets of all nations. It is but fourteen 
years since the teaching of Christianity ceased to be 
prohibited in this empire. Already native Christian 
churches of Japan begin to be self-supporting. 

Face to face with Asia, your nation has been the 
first to abandon Asiatic ideals of civilization and to 



316 APPENDIX. 

adopt those of Europe and America. There is no 
spot in your territory so obscure or remote as not to 
have heard the rumble of the wheels of progress. 

Japan has risen from the dull, low plain of feudal- 
ism to the commanding heights of political and relig- 
ious freedom, almost as suddenly as her own Fujisan 
is said to have sprang forth in a single night from the 
level of the sea to the peerless elevation of its daz- 
zling snows, the last to lose the rays of the setting 
and the first to greet those of the rising sun. 

BASELESS PEARS AS TO POLITICAL PURPOSES OF 
PROTESTANTISM IN JAPAN. 

The Jesuits in the seventeenth century incurred 
persecution in Japan chiefly because they were sup- 
posed to have the secret political purpose of annex- 
ing this empire to Portugal or Spain. From that 
day to this there have been those who have feared 
that the propagandism of Christianity here must end 
in making Japan subject to some foreign power. All 
intelligent men who know the difference between the 
nineteenth century and the seventeenth, and between 
Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, will smile at 
the obvious baselessness of such apprehensions. -The 
Jesuits who were here in Xavier's day may have had 
political motives ; the Protestants who are here to- 
day have none. 

I know the personal history of many of the heroic 
and devout men and women who have come here 
from America and Europe to teach Christianity. 
They have made great sacrifices in leaving their na- 
tive lands. Their thorough education, their energy, 



SPEECH AT KIOTO. 317 

their self-sacrifice, their lofty character, would have 
given them at home most desirable positions. They 
have been brought here by motives as free from po- 
litical or selfish taint as ever your azure Japanese sky 
was from clouds. They will not be without their re- 
ward at the last great day when God makes up his 
jewels. There is to come a time when they who have 
turned many to righteousness will shine as stars in 
the firmament. These men and women would scorn 
the offer of reward in the shape of political power, or 
any secular emolument, either for themselves, or for 
the countries from which they come. They are un- 
der the most solemn engagements to the societies they 
represent not to interfere in any way with your polit- 
ical arrangements. So far are they from represent- 
ing directly or indirectly any open or covert scheme 
of political aggression, that if they should favor any 
such enterprise, they would be instantly dropped 
from their positions by their immediate superiors, and 
inevitably lose all support from the Protestant Chris- 
tian populations of the West. 

RETURNED JAPANESE EXILES. 

Remember the heroic and pathetic story of some 
of your own citizens, who, as young men, ventured 
much to obtain a liberal education in America, 
brought back from there a profound faith in Protes- 
tant Christianity, and are now occupying among you 
high positions as teachers and organizers of public 
sentiment. There is in my city of Boston a princely 
merchant whose ships have visited all the zones, and 
whose Christian faith is not merely a creed, but a 



318 APPENDIX. 

life. There is to-day on this platform a revered cit- 
izen of yours, whom this merchant educated in Amer- 
ica, and whose history reads like a romance. Im- 
pelled by the desire to study that Bible which has 
made Western nations great, he escaped when a boy 
from Japan at the risk of his life. He was brought 
by Divine Providence across the multitudinous seas 
to Boston, to a Christian home there, to a New Eng- 
land College and Theological Hall, and finally to his 
own land once more and to this city, to found here a 
Christian College of secular and sacred learning, 
which may God make a Pillar of Fire in the future 
of Japanese civilization ! There are no men in your 
islands more loyal to all the highest interests of your 
empire than those who in the West have received an 
advanced education and learned to revere a scholarly 
and aggressive Christianity. Would God we could 
multiply a thousandfold in Japan the number and 
the influence of your Samajamas and Neesimas ! 
Then your political and educational and religious 
welfare would be assured, and with this your inde- 
pendence of foreign control. 

TRAITS OF JAPANESE CHARACTER. 

The island of Pappenberg, at the opening of the 
beautiful harbor of Nagasaki, was the first part of 
your empire on which my eyes rested. It is called 
the Tarpeian Rock of Japan. Down its giddy prec- 
icipes there were cast in the seventeenth century 
many whose knowledge of Christianity was defective, 
indeed, but who valued the little that they knew 
above life. I came into Japan through that one of 



SPEECH AT KIOTO. 319 

your ocean gates which has been made sacred by the 
memory of many Christian martyrdoms. It is not 
wonderful that I should have been led to study from 
the first the serious side of your national character. 
You are called the French of the East. You are like 
the French in artistic taste, in literary capacity, in 
courtesy, in love of pleasure, in vivacity, in courage, 
in patriotism, and in aspiration for progress. Your 
critics say that, if you have faults, they are much 
like those of the French ; but I, for one, see no evi- 
dence in your history that you possess that combina- 
tion of ferocity and frivolity which led Voltaire once 
to describe his countrymen as a race of tiger-apes. 
The Japanese have an exquisite perception of the 
beautiful in nature and art, a native untutored taste 
unmatched except among the ancient Greeks ; and a 
sense of honor not surpassed in the days of chivalry 
by any people of Europe. But, if you are somewhat 
like the French in the lighter traits of character, 
you are like them also in the more serious. You are 
like them in the capacity of producing Huguenots — 
men whose religious convictions do not waver al- 
though subjected to the fiercest flames of persecution. 
The history of the island of Pappenberg proves your 
capacity for religious mart}^rdom. Your native tem- 
ples, your past and present relations to Christianity, 
your literature, your family life, show that you pos- 
sess high religious endowments. 

TWO CHIEF PROPOSITIONS. 

Japan is ripe, not for second-rate things, but for 
first-rate. In adopting a new civilization, Japan has 



320 APPENDIX. 

taken for her watchword : " Never the second-best ; 
always the first-best." If she adopts the first-best, 
she will adopt Christianity. 

America, England, Scotland, Germany, wish Japan 
to be great, enlightened, free, independent. The 
Christian world believes that Japan cannot be either 
of these unless she become Christian. 

What are to be the relations of Christianity to the 
future of Japanese civilization ? What is to be the 
religious future of Japan? These are by far the 
most searching questions of the present hour in this 
empire. I venture to maintain two propositions : — 

1. You could not shut Christianity out of Japan if 
you would. 

2. You would not exclude Christianity from Japan 
if you could. 

Allow me to give my reasons for believing that 
you could not shut Christianity out of Japan if you 
would. 

THERE AEE NO FOEEIGN LANDS. 

God be thanked that in our day there are no for- 
eign lands ! Caesar could not drive his chariot around 
the borders of the Roman Empire in less than one 
hundred days ; we can now send a letter around the 
whole globe in ninety. London, or New York, or 
Yokohama is as near in time to the outskirts of civ- 
ilization in every corner of the earth as Rome was 
to the borders of the empire of Augustus. The in- 
crease of all means of intercommunication is so vast 
and rapid in our time, that the isolation of people 
from people is becoming impracticable. The mental 
seclusion of India, of Central Asia, of China, and even 



SPEECH AT KIOTO. 321 

of Africa must and will be broken up. There can 
be no more hermit nations. 

Japan cannot live behind a screen. She could 
not if she would ; and her recent history proves that 
she would not if she could. 

There is coming to be one system of military and 
naval training, one style of engineering, one chem- 
istry, one geology, one astronomy, one code of inter- 
national law and of morals, and so also one spiritual 
faith for all nations. The chemistry, the geology, the 
astronomy which maintains itself in the West will 
maintain itself in the East. The spiritual faith 
which maintains itself there will maintain itself here. 
Christianity, and it only, as every intelligent man 
knows, is thus sustaining itself and proving its right 
to universal empire. 

WORLD-WIDE TRIUMPHS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Consider the astounding rapidity of the advances 
of Christianity within the latest and most enlight- 
ened of the centuries. I measure here upon this ta- 
ble three hands' breadths to represent the first 1500 
years of the Christian era. In this space of time 
Christianity gained 100,000,000 adherents. But in 
the next three fingers' breadths, that is in the 300 
years immediately succeeding the reformation under 
Luther, it gained 100,000,000 more. In the next 
finger's breadth, that is, in the single century in 
which we live, it has gained 210,000,000 more. In 
the last century Christianity has gained as many ad- 
herents as in all the eighteen preceding centuries of 
the Christian Era. The number of Christians in the 
world is now estimated at 410,000,000. 



322 APPENDIX. 

Your Japanese mats are each six feet long. If the 
Christians of the world were to sit down together on 
a row of such mats, two on each mat, the line would 
extend around the whole globe, once, twice, thrice, 
six, nine, eleven times ! Were the Christians of the 
world to stand up side by side and join hands, they 
would engirdle the whole planet eleven times. 

In the year 1800 there were only 50 translations 
of the Bible in existence ; now there are 308. At 
the opening of this century there were expended for 
missions only .£50,000 annually ; now there are spent 
for that purpose £1,700,000 each year — a small sum, 
indeed, but one which is rapidly increasing. There 
are so many copies of the Scriptures now printed 
and distributed that there is one Bible in circula- 
tion for every ten inhabitants of the planet. There 
are 50,000 preachers and teachers of Christianity, 
and more than 1,000,000 enrolled church-members 
in pagan lands. Fifty years ago there were only 
2,000,000 scholars and teachers in the Sunday-schools 
of the world ; now there are over 14,000,000. Let 
my hand represent the whole population of the 
world. Three fifths of it, and those the most im- 
portant fifths, — thumb, forefinger, and middle finger, 
— are under Christian governments. Great Britain 
alone rules one third of the habitable surface and one 
fourth of the population of the globe. India has 
half a million of Protestant Christians. They have 
doubled their numbers every ten years for the last 
forty years. Professor Legge says that if the Prot- 
estant Christians in China go on increasing in num- 
ber as rapidly as they have of late, they will be at 



SPEECH AT KIOTO. 323 

least 100,000,000 in 1950. I am assured by the 
best statisticians that it is quite within the power of 
Christianity as a whole to bring a knowledge of the 
spoken or written gospel before the end of another 
quarter of a century to every inhabitant of the globe. 
Already the bells of Christian churches and the lights 
on Christian ships are nearly in sight and hearing of 
each other around the entire earth. 

These immense advances of Christianity I do not 
mention to prove its truth as a system of faith, but 
simply to show that you cannot seclude yourselves 
from it. 

Railways, telegraphs, printing-presses, universities, 
have come to Japan to stay, and so has Christianity. 

Your love of political freedom will favor religious 
freedom. The love of political freedom is one of the 
most intense passions of the population of this em- 
pire. You will not tolerate persecution for the sake 
of religion. I venture to predict that the Japanese 
will never again prohibit the teaching of Christian- 
ity. It will obtain a full and fair hearing. When 
it has once done this, your misconceptions of it will 
pass away. It will be impossible for you to think 
that its teachers have covert political motives. It 
will be impossible for infidels to caricature it. It 
will be impossible for the froth and scum of Western 
civilization in your sea-ports to mislead you in your 
judgment as to its effects in practice. Your own na- 
tive Christian churches are becoming numerous, self- 
supporting, and aggressive. They will be as cities 
set on hills. Christianity will exhibit itself here in 
private life and in public organizations and be known 



324 APPENDIX. 

by its fruits. It will absorb the most advanced sci- 
ence. It will found colleges, universities, and med- 
ical, theological, legal, and philosophical schools. It 
will sanctify and transfigure family life. It will 
teach immortality ; the being and attributes of a per- 
sonal God ; the necessity of the new birth and the 
atonement ; the eternal judgment. Filling all the 
world with its light, it will kindle here a holy radi- 
ance which no part of the Orient can escape. 

RELATIONS OF CHRISTIANITY TO POLITICAL FREE- 
DOM. 

Having given my reasons for believing that you 
could not shut Christianity out of Japan if you 
would, let me now explain why I hope you would 
not if you could. 

You are patriotic and wish to preserve the great 
benefits which your immense reforms, when com- 
pleted, will bring to you. You are passionately at- 
tached to political freedom. Only Christianity can 
make your political freedom safe. France is a proof 
that freedom cannot be built upon infidelity. Every 
people that Roman Catholicism has exclusively gov- 
erned through centuries has been left in a state of 
prolonged childhood. But Romanism has done more 
for those it has led than ever Buddhism has accom- 
plished for its adherents. Romanism never prepared 
a people for such political freedom as you expect to 
enjoy. Buddhism, even in its reformed shape, will 
not answer your needs as patriots. 

You purpose in 1890 to organize an Imperial Par- 
liament on the basis of representative institutions. 



SPEECH AT KIOTO. 325 

You are beginning the formation of political parties. 
The winds of faction begin to blow over your polit- 
ical sea. In the quiet waters of despotic govern- 
ments, you may float safely on mere rafts; but in the 
rough seas of freedom you must have staunch vessels 
or you will sink. Governments of the people, for 
the people, by the people, are possible only through 
the diffusion of conscientiousness among the people. 
Among the citizens of my native republic, it is a 
commonplace truth that safe political freedom con- 
sists in the diffusion of intelligence, liberty, property, 
and conscientiousness. It must be made up of the 
four and not of any three, or two, or one of these 
alone. Christianity is the only religion known to 
history which has ever prepared a nation for political 
freedom based on wide popular suffrage. 

It is a most striking fact that the map of the Prot- 
estant countries of the world in which Sundays are 
best observed, that is, Switzerland, Germany, Great 
Britain, and the United States, is almost precisely the 
same as the map of the countries in which safe po- 
litical freedom exists. There is freedom in France, 
but how long will it last ? There is freedom in Aus- 
tria, but it has a bayonet through it. There is free- 
dom in Russia, but it has a scourge above its back. 
Only the countries in which Christianity teaches the 
people conscientiousness, only those in which the 
Christian Sundays give opportunity to make the mass 
of the people serious, moral, and religious, show fit- 
ness for such freedom as the Japanese hope to enjoy. 

Alexis De Tocqueville said, " A nation never needs 
so much to be theocratic as when it is the most dem- 



326 APPENDIX. 

ocratic." Political liberty with Christianity, it has 
been wisely affirmed, is heaven ; political liberty 
without Christianity is hell. 

If Japan becomes free and does not become Chris- 
tian, she will never rise above the rank of a third or 
fourth rate power. Since the Japanese expelled the 
Moghuls, your people have shown no greater dread of 
any political disaster than of that of coming under 
the dominion of any foreign nation. With freedom 
and without Christianity, Japan, as I for one most 
solemnly believe, will be so divided against herself 
and so weak as ultimately to lose her national in- 
dependence. Instead of being too patriotic to admit 
Christianity to Japan, you will be too patriotic to 
exclude it. 

America wishes Japan to be great, free, enlight- 
ened, progressive, independent. The course of his- 
tory in the West for 1500 years proves that no na- 
tion can be all these without being Christian. 

INADEQUACIES OF REFORMED BUDDHISM. 

You are intelligent, and wish a religion that will 
bear examination. Christianity is such a religion, 
and Buddhism is not. You sent lately two Buddhist 
missionaries from this city to the West to learn the 
opinion of the great scholars there as to Buddhism. 
Max Miiller at Oxford told them that Gautama prob- 
ably never heard of Amida, nor of the Western Para- 
dise. He assured them that your Reformed Buddhism 
is a great departure from the original doctrines of 
Shaka. He advised them to return to Kioto and en- 
deavor to deliver their brethren from what he called 



SPEECH AT KIOTO. 327 

silly and mischievous superstitions. What reply will 
you make to Max Miiller's assertions ? In this mat- 
ter he represents fairly the soundest scholarship of 
Europe and America. When the creed of Reformed 
Buddhism is examined as an historical and literary cu- 
riosity, what is its rank among the best scholars of the 
world ? It is an interesting fossil. It is treated with 
a certain reverence because it has been the faith of 
many millions of men. But when it is put forward 
with the claim that it should command the assent of 
the intellect and heart of the modern world, — what 
is it ? A laughing-stock. I can say nothing less than 
this if I am to report to you faithfully what the learn- 
ing of the Occident thinks of the religious misbeliefs 
of the Orient. Let us have done with illusions. Uni- 
versity education of a thorough kind has already been 
introduced into Japan. Its progress is inevitable. 
In the rising light of adequate learning, Buddhism, 
Hinduism, and Mohammedanism will flee out of 
Asia as the birds of night flee before the dawn. The 
Land of the Rising Sun will not be a land of bats. 

CHRISTIANITY IN" THE UNITED STATES. 

You are intelligent, and wish a religion that can 
stand alone on its rendered reasons under free discus- 
sion and without state patronage. Christianity is the 
only religion that has ever done this. Do not think 
that Christianity in the West depends for its respec- 
tability on its connection with the state. In Germany 
and in England certain branches of Protestantism en- 
joy governmental patronage, and perhaps you are of 
the opinion that if this were removed Christianity 



328 APPENDIX. 

would fall. Look at the history of a free church in 
a free state in my own land. In the United States 
no church has any patronage from the state, or has 
had for more than two hundred years. Has Chris- 
tianity failed there ? In the year 1800 the proportion 
of enrolled Protestant church-members in the United 
States to the whole population was one in fifteen ; 
now it is one in five. The United States have fifty 
millions of people and ten millions of evangelical 
Protestant church-members. Besides these there are 
twelve millions of children in the Sabbath schools of 
the United States. More than forty millions of the 
population are undoubtedly in sympathy with a schol- 
arly, aggressive, Protestant Christianity. This is a 
result reached under free discussion, by- leaving Chris- 
tianity to stand alone without state patronage and 
with no support but its intellectual, social, moral, and 
religious merits. In this enumeration I exclude six 
millions of Roman Catholics, not because many of 
them are not Christians, but because average Roman 
Catholicism is a benighted and corrupted form of 
Christianity. By enrolled Protestant church-mem- 
bers I mean, of course, not a population of merely 
baptized and perhaps only nominal Christians, such 
as are found under the care of state churches, but 
church-members in the full sense of the word : that 
is, those who have made a solemn, public profession 
of their faith in Christianity and of their purpose to 
enter upon a religious life. 

What is the chief cause of the prosperity of the 
United States, and of other Protestant nations? A 
scholarly and aggressive evangelical Christianity. 



SPEECH AT KIOTO. 329 

This is the reply your own minister, Mr. Arinori, re- 
ceived from the foremost men in America when he 
put to tli em this question. It was a scholarly, evan- 
gelical, aggressive, Protestant Christianity, which 
crossed the Atlantic in the Mayflower and began the 
civilization of New England at Plymouth Rock. It 
was this style of Christianity that has founded nine 
out of ten of the colleges of the United States. It 
was Christianity of this type which took Charles I. 
by the throat and broke his neck. It is the Puritan 
element in the American population that has been 
the rudder of American progress. It was Christian- 
ity that planted the common school system in every 
American State from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and 
the Great Lakes to the Gulf. It was Christianity 
that abolished slavery. It is Christianity that holds 
the conscience of the nation up to the duty of bear- 
ing enormous taxes for the public good. It is Chris- 
tianity that has inspirited the United States to the 
paying of their public debt with a rapidity that has 
amazed the world. It is Christianity that only yes- 
terday compelled the lower house of the American 
Congress to vote to pay back to Japan the indemnity 
money of more than a million dollars, wrung from 
this empire by a process no better than robbery, after 
the bombardment of Shimonoseki. 

Among half-educated populations, largely made up 
by immigrants from the Old World, the United States 
have a few obscure infidel organizations. What have 
they been doing? A great majority of them have be- 
come utterly infamous by connecting themselves with 
attacks on the purity of the family. A few years ago 



330 APPENDIX. 

Congress, in a most scathing official document, re- 
jected a public petition of a majority of these leagues 
for the abolition of the righteous laws which prevent 
the transmission through the post-office of infamous 
publications. A few infidels denounced this enter- 
prise, but the majority adhered to it and were crushed 
under the heel of indignant public sentiment. The 
editor of a New York organ of these leagues was con- 
victed by a New York jury and sent to jail for dis- 
tributing infamous publications through, the mails. 
" Scribner's Monthly " described this leading infidel's 
career in an article entitled " The Apotheosis of Dirt." 
But this man was lately received with open arms by 
the theosophists of Bombay and Madras. Men are 
measured by their heroes. He and his compeers no 
more represent America than one or two notoriously 
noisy infidels in England represent Great Britain. 
These erratics and charlatans no more represent the 
countries to which they belong than a cobweb at the 
edge of a mountain grove represents the whole forest 
of shaking boughs. 

As to learned rationalism in the United States, it 
never had a better representative than Theodore Par- 
ker, but he is already outgrown. There exists in 
America no collected edition of his works. He was 
once read in India, and by a few in Japan, as the 
representative of our foremost religious thought. He 
has had no success in founding a theological party 
in America. His chief disciple, for some years a 
preacher of liberalism in Boston and New York, has 
lately told the world that he begins to doubt his 
own doubts, and has joined a conservative Unitarian 



SPEECH AT KIOTO. 331 

church. Mr. Emerson, who began his career with 
pantheistic ideas, now calls himself a Christian The- 
ist, and says that in this designation the word Chris- 
tian must not be left out, for to leave out that is to 
leave out everything. Boston, under Channing, Par- 
ker, and Emerson, has three times tried to found a 
new religion, but each attempt is now a last year's 
bird's-nest. 

THE DECLINE OF RATIONALISM IN THE GERMAN 
UNIVERSITIES. 

Germany has the most learned universities that the 
world now contains. The German Empire has five 
young men in a course of university education where 
England has one. In the theological faculties of the 
German universities are found the acutest modern 
experts in the study of the historical and philosoph- 
ical proofs of the divine origin of Christianity. As 
all scholars know, there has been in these faculties in 
the last fifty years a great reaction against infidelity 
and unbelief. Fifty or eighty years ago the evangel- 
ical lecture rooms in the theological departments of 
the German universities were empty, and the ration- 
alistic were crowded. Now, as I know from personal 
observation, the evangelical are crowded and the 
rationalistic empty. Out of the thirty prominent 
universities of Germany only three are under predom- 
inantly rationalistic influence. Of these three, Hei- 
delberg is the most important ; but Professor Christ- 
lieb, on the banks of the Rhine at Bonn, told me not 
long ago that this university lately had seven theo- 
logical teachers and on]y seven theological pupils. It 



332 APPENDIX. 

has not had over forty pupils at any one time in its 
theological department for many years. On the other 
hand, the number of theological pupils at evangelical 
Halle is from two hundred to three hundred ; at 
evangelical Berlin from three hundred to four hun- 
dred ; at evangelical Leipzig from four hundred to 
five hundred. I was lately at Leipzig, and heard 
Luthardt, Kahnis, and Delitzsch lecturing to im- 
mense classes of three hundred pupils. At Heidel- 
berg I have heard the leading theological professors 
often, and never saw more than five, seven, or nine 
pupils before any one of them at once. Lord Bacon 
used to say that the best material for political proph- 
ecy is to be found in the unforced opinions of young 
men. It is a most suggestive sign of the times that in 
Germany young men give their patronage to evangeli- 
cal rather than to rationalistic professors in the pro- 
portion of ten to one. There is, of course, rationalism 
enough left in Germany among the peasants and mer- 
chants, and in certain medical, legal, and philosophical 
faculties of the universities where theological science 
has not been studied as a specialty ; but the experts 
always ultimately lead thought in Germany, and the 
.experts in the theological faculties have fought a 
great battle with unbelief in the last eighty years, 
and the result has been a defeat of doubt on all cen- 
tral points. Two generations since, rationalistic com- 
mentaries used to come to us from the Elbe and the 
Oder; but now, as every scholar knows, the best 
evangelical commentaries produced anywhere come 
to us from the most learned universities of the world. 



SPEECH AT KIOTO. 333 

JAPANESE STUDENTS IN AMERICA. 

Not a few young men have been sent from Japan 
to America to obtain a liberal education. They have 
most of them had an honorable record there. Some- 
times they have taken prizes over American youth. 
In many cases they have become members of Amer- 
ican churches. I am much pained to be obliged to 
say that I have been told that a considerable number 
of these students, on returning to Japan, have not 
maintained their good standing as Christians. Some 
of these lapsed neophytes tell you that Christianity is 
declining in power in the West. Tell them in reply 
that the testimony of renegades and traitors is always 
suspicious. Tell them that one in five of the Amer- 
ican population is now an enrolled church-member 
where one in fifteen was such in 1800. Point out to 
them the recent triumphs of Christian scholarship 
in England and Germany, and the downfall there of 
school after school of rationalism and infidelity. Ex- 
hibit to them the world - wide progress of Christian 
ideas. Tell them that if, in presence of these facts, 
they think that Christianity is declining, they are 
immensely, colossally, and inexplicably mistaken. 
Several of your young men who have studied in 
America have there not only become church-mem- 
bers, but have received a thorough theological edu- 
cation. Not one of these latter, so far as I have 
heard, has failed to maintain a consistent Christian 
course after his return to Japan. Every one of these 
is now in a position of usefulness and honor in your 
new civilization. Ask these young men, who know 



334 APPENDIX. 

the facts thoroughly, what the condition of Chris- 
tianity is in the West, and they will tell you that it 
was never before so strong there as to-day. 

MOKAL NECESSITY OF THE NEW BIRTH AND THE 
ATONEMENT. 

You are not only patriotic and intelligent, but you 
are also naturally religious. You desire peace with 
God ; and Christianity is the only faith known under 
heaven or among men which points out adequate 
means of attaining such peace. Men die in Japan 
as well as elsewhere, and here as everywhere serious 
men desire supremely to be at peace when they go 
hence. It is self-evident in Japan as elsewhere that 
in order to be at peace with God we must be deliv- 
ered from the love of sin and the guilt of sin. Only 
Christianity, with its doctrines of the New Birth and 
of the Atonement, can teach human souls how to at- 
tain this double deliverance. 

AN-JIEO'S PROPHECY. 

Mendez Pinto was drifted to Japan in a piratical 
vessel in 1542. When he left your islands, one of 
your countrymen, Anjiro, of Satsuma, took refuge in 
Pinto's boat and was carried to Goa, on the west 
coast of India. At Goa he heard and embraced the 
Christian doctrines. He became an interpreter of 
Xavier, and returned to Japan with him in 1549. I 
open the life of Xavier, and find in it in his own 
words this remarkable record : " I inquired of An- 
jiro, whether, if I should go to Japan, he thought 
that the inhabitants would embrace Christianity. 



SPEECH AT KIOTO. 335 

He replied that his people would not immediately 
assent to what might be said to them ; but that they 
would investigate what I might affirm respecting re- 
ligion by a multitude of questions, and above all by 
observing whether my conduct agreed with my words ; 
but if I should satisfy them on those two points by 
my suitable replies to their inquiries and by a con- 
duct above all reproach, that then, as soon as the 
matter was known and reflected upon, the king and 
all the nobility and the adult population would flock 
to Christ, being a nation which always follows reason 
as their guide." Face to face with these temples and 
schools of Buddhism, I venture to express my un- 
hesitating conviction that the future of Japan will 
justify Anjiro's prediction. 

JAPAN AS THE ADVANCED GUARD OF REFORM IN 

ASIA. 

There are two ways in which a nation may be re- 
formed, one by its own independent effort, like that 
of Japan ; another by the imposition of civilization 
from without and the destruction of political indepen- 
dence, as in the case of India. In one or the other 
of these two ways weak and backward nations in 
Asia, Africa, and the isles of the sea must be regen- 
erated, or else maintain themselves as hermits. To 
do the latter is every year increasingly impracticable, 
and already well-nigh impossible, except under the 
most deadly of tropical climates, where extraordinary 
physical conditions shut out the white races. The 
stern truth is that in modern times nations that can- 
not assert and maintain their independence are in 



336 APPENDIX. 

danger of being absorbed by the aggression of stronger 
populations. Selfishness and injustice in the rela- 
tions of powerful nations to weak ones grow less and 
less dangerous, it is to be hoped, as the ages advance ; 
but there is enough of both yet left in the world to 
make it certain that no nation is safe which cannot 
defend itself against modern powers by the use of 
modern weapons. Columbiads must be matched by 
Columbiads and not by bows and arrows. Japan 
cannot successfully compete with Western nations un- 
less she equips herself as thoroughly as her rivals are 
equipped, not only in science, art, and industry, but 
in moral and religious training as well. The secret 
of the prosperity of the free nations of the Occident 
is Christianity. Until Japan thoroughly learns that 
secret, her strength will not be equal to the tasks 
which may fall to her not only in self-development, 
but in self-defense. 

Japan is seeking for intellect and learning through- 
out the world to establish the foundations of her pros- 
perity. All the departments of her educational in- 
stitutions, her army, her navy, and her politics, she has 
reorganized on the most approved models, or on what 
she regards as the best practicable in the present 
state of the empire. She has sent young men to 
America and Europe to receive an advanced educa- 
tion, and called them back to occupy posts of the 
highest responsibility in the conduct of her great re- 
forms. She has temporarily availed herself of the 
services of experts from Germany, France, England, 
and the United States, in setting on foot her new en- 
terprises. In all this she has most jealously main- 



SPEECH AT KIOTO. 337 

tained her freedom from foreign control or interfer- 
ence, and has set to the world an example of aspira- 
tion and independence that command the admiration 
of mankind. 

As I travel around the world, I am meditating con- 
stantly on the question : How can the weak and 
backward nations of the earth be reformed ? My 
answer is : It must be either by the method of India 
or by that of Japan. Absorption from without or 
self-reformation from within must ultimately be the 
fate of every people that is exposed to the flowing 
tides of civilization in a world that is now commer- 
cially a unit. Which of these two methods I should 
myself prefer ought to be evident not only from the 
fact that I happen to be an American, but simply 
from the circumstance that I am a man, and as such 
in sympathy with the just claims of all other men. I 
abhor the destruction of the independence of nation- 
alities. I would make international law harmonious 
with the supreme Christian principle that we are to 
do to others what we would that others should do to 
us. Nevertheless, my expectation is that the inde- 
pendence of weak and unreformed nations will be de- 
stroyed. To every backward people on the earth 
Providence presents the alternative : Absorption or 
self- reformation, which ? To every such people Prov- 
idence appears to me to be uttering in our day this 
most searching and comprehensive counsel : Choose 
self - reformation on the most advanced Christian 
ideals. Imitate Japan. My hope, my devout prayer 
is, that this advice may be heeded, and that the suc- 
cess of Japan may make her example, and not that of 

22 



338 APPENDIX. 

India, the model for reform in the East. Let Japan 
thoroughly succeed, and the cry will be heard in 
Corea: Imitate Japan. Let Japan thoroughly suc- 
ceed, and before another half century shall have 
passed the cry will be heard even in China: Imitate 
Japan. Let Japan thoroughly succeed, and in Af- 
ghanistan, in Persia, in Arabia, the watchword of 
progress may yet be : Imitate Japan. Let Japan 
thoroughly succeed, and on the Ganges and the Indus 
m the inspiring cry of reform may yet be : Imitate Ja- 
pan. Let Japan thoroughly succeed, and in the cen- 
tre of Africa, on the great lakes and head waters of 
the mighty rivers of the Dark Continent, the most 
animating shout of nations awakening from slumber 
and rejoicing in the morning light of civilization 
may yet be : Imitate Japan. Thus may be fulfilled, 
in a moral sense, the aspiration of your statesmen 
and reformers, that the keen weapons of Japan may 
be made to shine beyond the seas. 

IYEYASU'S WATCHWORD. 

Not many days ago I was on the battle-field of Se- 
kigahara. There your hero Iyeyasu achieved a victory 
which gave peace to Japan for 250 years. In the 
early morning I sat down on the mound under the 
breathing pines, on the spot where he rested after 
that battle. You remember that he fought bare- 
headed ; but that after success was won he called 
for his helmet and put it on, saying, " After victory, 
tighten the cords of your helmet." What was his 
meaning? After victory, secure the fruits of vic- 
tory. Let me commend this watchword of Iyeyasu 



SPEECH AT KIOTO. 339 

to New Japan. The price of liberty is eternal vigi- 
lance. You have begun vast reforms. In all depart- 
ments of your public life you have initiated immense 
changes. Imitate Iyeyasu. After victory, tighten the 
cords of your helmets. 

The eyes of the civilized world are fastened on Ja- 
pan. All who desire the regeneration of Asia are 
watching intently the new civilization of this empire. 
What is the world looking at here ? Not your Inland 
Sea, although it is a dream of beauty ; not the land- 
scapes of the Tokaido or the Nakasendo, although 
they are of unsurpassed loveliness ; not Fujisan, al- 
though it is sublime and peerless. The eyes of the 
world are fastened on you, young Japanese statesmen ; 
on you, young Japanese professors of science ; on you, 
young Japanese artists ; on you, young Japanese au- 
thors ; on you, young Japanese editors ; on you, 
young Japanese lecturers ; on you, young Japanese 
teachers of all ranks ; and, most of all, on you, young 
Japanese Christians. The questions the world is 
asking are whether you will imitate the first-best or 
only the second-best of the institutions of the Occi- 
dent; whether you will secure the greatest advan- 
tages of a new civilization without losing the best 
traits of your indigenous national culture ; whether 
your orders of nobility are to be founded on mere 
ancestry or on personal achievement, on pedigree or 
performance, on artificial or natural rank ; whether, 
in your politics, you will maintain liberty without 
license, and govern your empire by representative 
forms and yet not be wrecked by party spirit ; 
whether you will secure the right management of 



340 APPENDIX. 

great cities as well as of rural districts, and deliver 
your populations not only from ignorance, but from 
intemperance, social vice, poverty, and the tyranny 
of capital over labor ; and most especially whether 
you will commit the future of Japan to the guidance 
of a false religious faith, or to no faith at all, or to 
the most spiritual and scholarly forms of Christian- 
ity and to the hand of Almighty God. The present 
and the next generation of the leaders of thought in 
Japan will be forced by the progress of events to 
answer most of these questions, and to do so in face 
of the whole world. Your responsibilities are as im- 
mense as your opportunities. Let political and relig- 
ious freedom succeed in Japan and her example of 
reform may yet be imitated throughout Asia. Let 
Japan fail, and she will become a stumbling-block 
in the path of the advancing civilization of a whole 
continent. These islands are but a small part of 
Asia, and a rudder is but a small part of a ship ; but 
the rudder, rightly managed, guides the whole ves- 
sel, and so Japan, rightly managed, may be the rud- 
der of reform in all Asia. Place the hand not of 
Buddhism, not of Confucianism, not of infidelity, but 
of an aggressive and scholarly Christianity, upon the 
rudder of Japan, and this empire, by the blessing of 
Almighty God, may guide ail Asia into a regenerated 
and glorious future. 



THE WRITINGS OF 

JOSEPH COOK 



BOSTON MONDAY LECTURES, 

WITH PRELUDES ON CURRENT EVENTS. 

IN NINE VOLUMES. 
Each volume, 12mo, $1.50; the set $13.50. 

BIOLOGY. Illustrated. Eighteenth Edition. 
TRANSCENDENTALISM. Sixth Edition. 
ORTHODOXY. Sixth Edition. 
CONSCIENCE. Ninth Edition. 
HEREDITY. Sixth Edition. 
MARRIAGE. Sixth Edition. 
LABOR. Third Edition. 
SOCIALISM. Third Edition. 
OCCIDENT. (A new volume.) 



ORIENT. (Mr. Cook's latest book.) 



For searching philosophical analysis, for keen and merciless logic, for dogmatic 
assertion of eternal truth in the august name of science such as thrills the soul to its 
foundations, for widely diversified and most apt illustrations draiun from, a wide 
field of reading and observation, for true poetic feeling, for a pathos without any 
mixture of sentimentality , for candor , for moral elevation, and for noble loyalty to 
those great Christian verities which the author affirms and vindicates, these wonder- 
ful Lectures stand forth alone amidst the contemporary literature of the class to 
which they belong. — London Quarterly Review. 



CEITICAL NOTICES OF ME. COOK'S 

BOSTON MONDAY LECTTJEES. 



President James McCosh, Princeton College, in the Catholic Pres- 
byterian for September, 1879. 

Mr. Cook did not take up the work he has accomplished, as a 
trade, or by accident, or from impulse ; but for years he had 
been preparing for it, and prepared for it by an overruling guid- 
ance. I regard Joseph Cook as a Heaven-ordained man. He 
comes at the fit time ; that is, at the time he is needed. . . . He 
lightens and thunders, throwing a vivid light on a topic by an ex- 
pression or comparison, or striking a presumptuous error as by a 
bolt from heaven. He is not afraid to discuss the most ab- 
stract, scientific, or philosophic themes before a popular audi- 
ence ; he arrests his hearers first by his earnestness, then by the 
clearness of his exposition, and fixes the whole in the mind by 
the earnestness of his moral purpose. 



Rev. Professor A. P. Peabody, of Harvard University, in the 
Independent. 

Joseph Cook is a phenomenon to be accounted for. No other 
American orator has done what he has done, or anything like it ; 
and, prior to the experiment, no voice would have been bold 
enough to predict its success. 

We reviewed Mr. Cook's " Lectures on Biology " with unqual- 
ified praise. In the present volume we find tokens of the same 
genius, the same intensity of feeh'ng, the same lightning flashes 
of impassioned eloquence, the same vise-like hold on the rapt 
attention and absorbing interest of his hearers and readers. We 
are sure that we are unbiased by the change of subject ; for, 
though we dissent from some of the dogmas which the author 
recognizes in passing, there is hardly one of his consecutive 
trains of thought in which we are not in harmony with him, or 
one of his skirmishes in which our sympathies are not wholly on 
his side. 



Rev. Dr. Thomas Hill, Ex-President of Harvard University, in the 
Christian Register. 

These lectures are crowded so full of knowledge, of thought, 
of argument, illumined with such passages of eloquence and 
power, spiced so frequently with deep-cutting though good-na- 
tured irony, that I could make no abstract from them without 
utterly mutilating them. 



Professor Francis Bowen, Harvard University. 

I do not know of any work on conscience in which the true 
theory of ethics is so clearly and forcibly presented, together 
with the logical inferences from it in support of the great truths 
of religion. 

The Princeton Review. 

Mr. Cook has already become famous ; and these lectures are 
among the chief works that have, and we may say justly, made 
him so. Their celebrity is due partly to the place and circum- 
stances of their delivery, but still more to their inherent power, 
without which no adventitious aids could have lifted them into 
the deserved prominence they have attained. . . . Mr. Cook is 
a great master of analysis. 



Boston Daily Advertiser. 

It is not often that Boston people honor a public lecturer so 
much as to crowd to hear him at the noon-tide of a week-day ; 
and, when it does this month after month, the fact is proof posi- 
tive that his subject is one of engrossing interest. Mr. Cook, 
perhaps more than any gentleman in the lecture-field the past 
few years, has been so honored. 



The Independent. 

We know of no man that is doing more to-day to show the 
reasonableness of Christianity, and the unreasonableness of un- 
belief ; nor do we know of any one who is doing it with such ad- 
mirable tolerance yet dramatic intensity. 

3 



Rev. R. Payne Smith, Dean of Canterbury. 

The lectures are remarkably eloquent, vigorous, and powerful, 
and no one could read them without great benefit. They deal 
with very important questions, and are a valuable contribution 
towards solving many of the diffi culties which at this time trou- 
ble many minds. 

Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, London. 

These are very wonderful lectures. We bless God for rais- 
ing up such a champion for his truth as Joseph Cook. Few could 
hunt down Theodore Parker, and all that race of misbelievers, 
as Mr. Cook has done. He has strong convictions, the courage 
of his convictions, and force to support his courage. In reasoning} 
the infidel party have here met their match. We know of no 
other man one half so well qualified for the peculiar service of 
exploding the pretensions of modern science as this great 
preacher in whom Boston is rejoicing. Some men shrink from 
this spiritual wild-boar hunting ; but Mr. Cook is as happy in it 
as he is expert. May his arm be strengthened by the Lord of 
hosts ! 

The British Quarterly Review. 

Mr. Cook is a man of wide reading, tenacious memory, acute 
discrimination, and great power of popular exposition. Nothing 
deters him. He plunges in medias res, however abstruse the 
speculation, and his vigor and fire carry all before them. He 
has intuitive genius for pricking wind-bags, and for reducing 
over-sanguine and exaggerated hypotheses to their exact value. 
He has called a halt in many an impetuous march of science, and 
exposed a fundamental fallacy in many a triumphant argument. 

The London Spectator. 

Vigorous and suggestive ; interesting from the glimpses they 
give of the present phases of speculation in what is emphatically 
the most thoughtful community in the United States. 

*** For sale by all Booksellers. Sent by mail, post-paid, on re- 
ceipt of price by the Publishers, 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY, 

Boston and New Yokk. 
4 



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